City of Dust
by Ken-Goh
Summary: The sequel to The Edge


**DISCLAIMER**: This is an (alas) unlicensed work of fan fiction. I do not own the copyright to _Eureka Seven_, the characters of the anime series or its setting. Bandai Entertainment and Bones Studio have the legal rights to anything directly relating to the wonderful _Eureka Seven _series_ -_ though all my original characters, as well as all lyrics and poetry, are solely mine.

_City of Dust_ is part two of a new story arc (_Shine On, Shine On_) that began with _The Edge_, which can be found here on this website.

_Shine On, Shine On_ is a sequel to, and extension of, the events chronicled in my earlier _Eureka Seven_ followup novel, _The Fire in the Heart._

This is the proper sequence of all installments up to this point:

_**The Fire in the Heart**_

1: _Out of the Nest_

2: _Loss of Life_

3: _And I Shall Be Your Light_

4: _The Flame at the Heart of the World_

_**Shine On, Shine On**_

1: _The Edge_

2: _City of Dust_

All of these can be found here on this site.

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**City of Dust**

**(2)**

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**A story from the world of **_**Eureka Seven**_

**by **

**John Wagner**

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**Chapter One**

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Soon it would be dawn, the girl knew, and the skies would hide them no longer.

She stretched once again, unbuttoning the oversized military shirt she wore, to fan out her wings to their fullest extent. The night had been long, and though the gyropilot had done most of the work of flying the Federation air-to-ground gunship, she found sleep only in unsatisfying driblets, wracked with unsettling half-dreams.

Only when they reached the polar Boundary Cliff that marked the northerly border of the New Lands had she given in to fear, however briefly. Confronted with a three-hundred-kilometer-high sheer barrier of Coral, the gyropilot first screamed out a collision warning, then wrenched the gunship into a hard left avoidance bank. The girl had been forced to override the automatics and put the ship into a rising spiral, well away from those deadly wind-shear forces generated by the colliding air masses at the Boundary. Only after she'd brought the aerodynamic-only craft high above the altitude of the Cliff surface did she surrender the controls to the gyropilot once more.

It hadn't been at all happy with her chosen altitude of thirty meters, but she'd overridden the system again and engaged full terrain-mapping sensors to keep them hugging the ground, well below the Federation radar and long-range mass-detectors. With the navigation lights extinguished, no one would see them as long as night held. But before long, they would be exposed by the onrushing light of dawn. She must now make the preparations she'd been forming in her mind through the long journey into Federation territory.

Behind her, the boy on the floor made a bovine groan far back in his throat. She felt his consciousness stir, like the faint glow of a firefly throbbing in a stand of tall grass. The girl shrugged herself back into the loose military shirt and went to his side, crouching to feel his forehead. As she had no idea how a normal body temperature would feel, the gesture was really for herself, to give her at least the _feeling_ of doing something for him. For soon he would wake, and in his disorientation he would need her as never before.

The gyropilot beeped twice. She hurried back to the pilot's seat and brought up the holo display map of the landscape, still concealed by the waning night. Ahead lay the spot on which she'd decided during the long flight, just inland from the Collin Sea, thirty-seven kilometers southwest of the Tower city of Akite. According to the topographical overlay, the intervening terrain consisted of fifth-growth forest of the District 112 Logging Exploitation Zone. The girl could only hope that the topo database was sufficiently up-to-date, and that the trees would be thick enough to offer some concealment while they...

_While we _what_?_

She could no longer ignore the fact that she had no plan whatever for what would come once they landed. Simply _getting_ here had occupied all her courage and thought to this point.

The instruments beeped once again, more urgently this time. Ariadne knew the fuel level was still adequate, so something had to be out of the ordinary. Were they being hailed by some traffic controller? Or worse, challenged by a military patrol craft? Could it be a malfunction in the ship's systems?

Her mind strayed for a moment to the boy lying on the deck behind her, still groping toward consciousness. When he awoke at last, his confusion would go beyond anything he had ever experienced.

_But Maurice will overcome that. He'll understand what must be done once we land on hostile Federation territory._

_I hope_.

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**Chapter Two**

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"This is Annette Emerson with the afternoon news, direct from the Ministry of Information at the Heart of the World. Our top story today is the complete blackout of public communications in the five remaining Tower States of the Federation. There has been..."

One of the three aircraft mechanics standing before the public videoscreen in the employee locker room clasped his hands and lifted his eyes to Heaven. "Oh, how I'd like to be in a blackout with _her_. What a babe!"

"Yeah, dream on, Stavros." His companion wiped his hands on his coveralls and brayed out a mocking laugh. "Not even with the whole Coral behind you would you stand a chance with a honey like that."

"I hear her husband's pretty high up in the InterDominion transport service," said the third without taking his eyes from the screen. "I guess _he'd_ have something to say about it, anyways. Y'know, that doll kind of reminds me of a girl I used to know in Friesland..."

"Will you guys shut _up_? I can't hear a thing she's saying about the Federation with you three drooling all over the screen." A young man in a dark reffing jacket elbowed his way through them, leaning close to the image, his head cocked.

"...but Information Minister Matt Stoner is close to IPF sources, and promises that IDN News will have updates as soon as they are released by the military. High Admiral Juergens has already issued an official statement assuring all InterDominion citizens that there are _no_ signs of any Federation military aggression at this time. In other news, Senator André Fuillión has called again upon the World Parliament to reveal what he terms..."

The young man tossed back a swatch of untrimmed black hair from his eyes and scowled as he straightened. "Crap, I missed it."

"Sorry, Kaz. I forgot how serious you take any news about the Federation." Stavros peeled off his working coveralls and slipped into a casual jumpsuit of deep blue before combing his own hair with meticulous precision. "What with the stuff they did to your family and all..." He tossed the soiled coveralls into a laundry hamper, and did not continue the thought.

"Yeah. Well, that's ancient history, now, I guess. Sometimes I forget that Mom and Dad and Tommy are all okay now. Maybe because it took so much work to get my parents resettled here in the Heart of the World."

"Uh-huh. But look, you're still a young guy, and all that's behind you now. I mean the rest of us, we either _look_ nineteen or twenty or we're on our way—what with the Coralian Gift and all. But you really _are_ eighteen, and if you don't mind my sayin' so, you seem like a kid with a good future ahead of him." Fidelio looked at the floor, kicking at a nonexistent clump of dirt. "Time t'move on, right? I mean, it's been a year..."

"...since the accident, yeah. I get your point. You don't need to hammer it in." Kaz tugged his arms into the sleeves of the ref jacket and waved as he hurried for the door. "See you guys on Monday, okay?"

Kazuya Aruno made his way from the Sestroyesk Aircraft Manufactory at a brisk walk, scarcely noticing the chattering crowds of other first-shift workers streaming out through the security gates. He frowned up at the brilliant late-afternoon sun. Stavros had seen the truth, all right—the truth that filled more and more of Kaz's waking moments. _Time to move on_. _Time to move on_.

Buses hummed past, bearing their chattering passengers on their way into the Heart of the World. Friends would be waiting there, he knew. Homes, families, good times. _Not for me, though. Mom and Dad keep telling me it's time to start settling down, but what for? Everybody's got pretty much an unlimited lifespan here in the New Lands, so what's the hurry?_ He jammed both hands into his pockets and bowed his head as he walked. _Sure, the City's a good two miles, but the exercise'll feel good, and kill some time. And anyhow, what's the hurry? I can always..._

"Kazuya?"

He stumbled, startled out of himself, and turned behind. A girl stood there on the walkway, regarding him with the serenely blank face of a bored sales clerk. _Hell of a pretty clerk, though_. In a single sweeping glance, he took in her shoulder-length barley-colored hair, her black walking boots and everything in between. "Sorry, you scared me there, for a second. Yeah, I'm Kazuya, what's up?"

"Kazuya _Aruno_?"

"Yeah, that's right. Call me 'Kaz,' like everybody else. You work at the plant? Hey, let me guess—you're a secretary in the Management block, right?"

A light aircraft hissed overhead, trapar streaming from its wingtips. She did not look up. "My name is Lark. Viyuuden sent me to find you."

"Viyuuden? The Vodarek priest?" _How old is she? She _looks_ about sixteen, but just about _every_ woman in the New Lands either looks sixteen or soon will, these days._"What for? I mean, I haven't been to the Temple for a couple of months, but..."

"The Temple is where we must go now, you and I. Keep walking, and we'll catch a bus at the next stop."

He bridled at her peremptory tone, but took his place at her side anyway. "Well, why not? Nothing better for me to do, tonight. You a Vodarek communicant?"

"I suppose I must be. Your sister is Tomika Stevens, the one who sings at the National Theater?"

"What, Tommy?" He lost his footing for an instant, but managed to keep pace with her all the same. "What's _she_ got to do with anything? Hey, is she all right? You didn't come to tell me..."

"Tomika is well and healthy as far as I know." The girl faced him as she walked. "She's an admirable woman. Are you very much like her?"

Somehow, he found the question a painful one. "I dunno. In some ways, I guess. You a friend of hers?"

"I'm not sure that I actually _have_ any friends. Perhaps I never did. Look, there's a bus on the way—step faster and we can make it to the stop before it arrives."

"Uh, okay. Listen, Miss..."

"My name is Lark, I told you. Hurry, please."

"Okay, Lark... Listen, you mind telling me what you want with me? Or how you even _know_ me? I mean, I'm sure I'd've remembered it if I'd ever met _you_ before..."

"On the contrary, we _have_ met before, and you _haven't_ remembered. Just as well, I suppose." She stopped for a moment, waving to catch the bus driver's attention, then doubled her walking speed, forcing Kaz nearly to a run in order to keep up with her long-legged strides.

Lark reached the orange WAIT HERE FOR SHUTTLE BUS sign just as the shadow of the decelerating bus itself put her and Kazuya in its shade. She seized his wrist and tugged him toward the opening doors, pushing him inside, ahead of her.

"Hey... But I'm telling you, I've never _seen_ you before. _When_ are you and me supposed to've met, anyway?" The bus lurched forward; he grabbed for a railing in order to keep his feet, while Lark put out a hand to steady him.

"There are two empty seats in the center. Go on—we'll take those."

"Yeah, sure. But listen, are you sure you've got the right guy? Just when the _hell_ have we met before?"

She dropped into the seat beside him, primly tugging the hem of her skirt over her bare knees. "We weren't properly introduced at the time." She turned her dark eyes toward his, as if daring him to look away. "I was too busy trying to commit murder."

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**Chapter Three**

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Max Condor yawned until he thought his jaws would crack, leaning far back in the pilot's seat of the LZ-129 in an epic stretch.

"You okay, cowboy?" asked Phaedra. Even in the dull green glow from the instruments, Max could see the weariness in her eyes. Their night-long journey across the northerly airspace of the New Lands and into the Federation itself had taken its toll.

"It's been kind of a long day, I guess. _And_ night. I wish you'd've gotten more sleep."

She ran her fingers through her pixie-cut pink hair and shook her head. "Look who's talking. _You_ haven't had any sleep at all. Trying to impress me with how tough you are?"

"I keep expecting a squadron of Federation deeplanes or LFOs to show up. That doesn't exactly make for a relaxed night. Anyway, there was a can of stim pills in the first-aid cabinet." He peered out into the night, then once more checked the holographic display of the ground, now flashing invisibly past them thirty meters below. "Autoguidance or not, I get nervous about flying this fast at treetop altitude for so long."

Phaedra scrolled through the flight log display. "No radar alarms, though, or mass-detector waveforms. So I guess they haven't noticed us yet. This seat is _killing_ my butt." She rubbed her behind with both hands, a gesture that Max found quietly endearing.

"You'd better hope that's the worst pain we'll have to—"

Both of them twitched as the radio beeped softly for attention. The red readout above the comm panel told them it was an encrypted transmission from the Heart of the World.

"LZ-129," he told the microphone.

"Bird, this is Nest with an update, over."

She made a sour face at him. "What the hell? What's this 'bird nest' stuff?"

"Bird, here. Over." Annoyed, he waved at Phaedra to keep still.

"Satellite tracking shows that your prey is going to roost. Their coordinates and projected flight path are now being downloaded to your flight computer. Since it's not a trapardynamic ship, it's going into a low-elevation spiral to lose altitude. Our best guess is that they're looking for a landing spot. Over."

Max watched as the flight-path projection of the Federation airship stolen by Ariadne and Maurice translated itself into a yellow dot on the coordinate map. "Roger, I see the target. Where exactly _is_ that? Over."

"In the province of Visograd. Projected touchdown is near the coast of a large inland lake called the Collin Sea. There's a big Federation Woodland Exploitation Zone surrounding it. Foothills, but nothing too rugged. Sparsely settled region. About a hundred and ten kilos to the northeast, there's the Tower city of Schelde, and outside of that, the Heroic Struggle Aerodrome. Any idea where your prey intends to go, Bird?"

Phaedra leaned closer to the microphone. "I bet they're probably gonna—"

But before she could say more, Max jerked the handset back, holding it muted against his flight jacket. "_Shhh_!"

"Don't 'shhh' me, dammit! You're not the only one who can—"

"Negative, negative!" came the agitated voice on the other end of the link. "Bird, it is strongly advised, repeat, _strongly_ advised, that Candy will _not_ use the comm except for emergency purposes! The danger of possible voiceprint ID is too great. Those are the Commander's direct orders. Do you copy, Bird?"

_Candy?_ mouthed Phaedra, red-faced with indignation.

Carefully, Max lifted the microphone again. "Copy, Nest, copy. Listen, we're reducing airspeed now, so give us another buzz when the prey's in the grass, okay? We'll—_I'll_—keep in touch. Over."

"Copy that, Bird. Over and out."

"What the _hell_ is this 'Candy' crap?" she demanded, before he could return the handset to its cradle between the seats. "Who d'you think I _am_, some little kid in a playpen?"

"Take it easy. While you were catnapping a couple of hours back, the intel people back in the Heart of the World—on the orders of your old man, in case you didn't figure that out—gave us code names, to use in radio communication. I'm 'Bird,' and you're 'Candy.'" He tapped the side of his head. "Because of your hair, I guess. Cotton candy, you know?"

Sulking, she returned to her seat. "That's _just_ like Dad. Talk about _stupid_ code names. I'll bet Mom thought it was pretty cute, too."

"Maybe." Max knew fresh fear as a faint grayish sheen along the eastern horizon told him that dawn would not be long. Soon, even their ground-hugging altitude would be no protection from being spotted in Federation airspace. "Listen...what were you going to say about where Maurice and Ariadne might be heading?"

"Well, I mean it's _obvious_, isn't it?" She reached across the the central controls and shifted the map display three hundred and fifty kilometers southeastward. "Here. It's the only place that makes any sense."

"_Pilgrim Island? _The _capital_ itself? That'd be the stupidest, most dangerous thing anybody could possibly—"

"Sure. That's why nobody'd ever think they'd be crazy enough to try it. Even Dad's Security group didn't say anything about it, just now."

Max's stomach twisted into a hot knot of acid around his most recent stim tablet. "But..._why?_ What's on Pilgrim Island? Except for little things like the Federation High Council; the biggest concentration of security forces on the planet; a huge military base and so many air patrols that even a moth couldn't get near it. What would they want _there?_"

"The _Arkship_, of course. It's still in synch orbit three hundred and fifty kilos above the Island. It's connected to the ground by that monomolecule tramline that the Council uses to get up there for its meetings."

"Uh, yeah, but what's _in_ the Arkship?" He strained desperately to come up with something, _anything_, that might prove her wrong. "The main drives were all taken out centuries ago; there're no engines in it except for the stationkeeping thrusters. It's just a historical monument, that's all. There's nothing _in_ it any more."

Phaedra turned toward the forward windscreen again, looking out into the waning night. "I'm not so sure. Didn't you hear Matthieu last night, around the campfire?"

He remembered, then. "Sure, but... Oh, no, wait a minute. They couldn't really believe that garbage about—"

"You got it...Bird. Chamber Eighty-Two."

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**Chapter Four**

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Maurice groped around him, sick and groggy. _It's too damn early. I don't wanna get outa bed, yet._ _And the bed's so _hard._ How're we supposed to sleep in a bed that's fulla dirt and rocks?_

_Maurice_, murmured the voice in his mind.

"Ariadne? What happened to the pillow? Why's it...?" In that instant, a vision of Ariadne exploding in the midst of a frozen waterfall erupted into his memory, and he jerked himself upright, terrified, blinking with eyes gone blurred and unwilling. "_Ariadne!_ Where _are_ you? I can't..."

Hands caressed him, soothing hands, _her_ hands. "I'm here. But I had to drag you out before it was completed, so you're still not quite yourself. You mustn't be afraid."

Maurice squinted at her, outlined in a dull, smoky glow from the sky behind her. Even in such faint light his eyes recoiled in pain. He winced, looked away, then looked back once again. This time he found himself able to bear it. "Before _what_ was completed? What's going on? I remember something about kidnapping...but you're safe, now. Why're you dressed in that baggy uniform...? Oh." It came to him at once, in a single crashing weight of memory. "Oh, yeah. The airship. We're down, now. Where?"

"At the edge of a big lake, an inland sea, really. In the Federation." She tugged the lapels of her military jacket closer around her, like the flaps of a pup tent. "How do you feel?"

"Weird. Did I pass out again, or what? My eyes seem kinda funny...it's like you're glowing or something. And my _back_. What the hell's binding around my back? I've gotta get this damn ref jacket off..." Out of long habit, he reached for the neck snaps, finding neither fasteners nor fabric, only his own bare skin, from the waist up.

At once suspicious, he glanced to Ariadne, who now watched him with an intent mixture of apprehension and delight, as though any moment she would lead him to a surprise birthday party. He rubbed at his arms, feeling the cold slime of morning fog. Then up to his shoulders, and behind...

"_Aaaaaaah!_" Maurice thrashed to his knees, feeling the strange new muscles of his back open something behind him with a _whump_ of taut fabric. Clammy dew sprayed forward, and something shimmering and green quivered at the edges of his vision.

"Hold _still_, Maurice! I'm sure you shouldn't be straining yourself yet. No, _don't_ try to stand..."

He stood. Holding tightly to her shoulder as he fought back vertigo and nausea, he tested the alar muscle group, feeling the cold breeze of his wings fluttering and jerking behind. "Oh, no, it's the _transformation. _I'm like _you_ now, aren't I? My hair..." Maurice yanked at it, trying to tug a strand close enough to his face to see. "It's bluish-green like yours, now, right? And my eyes... Oh, no, no, _no_..."

"I thought you'd be _pleased_! You always said you wanted us to be alike, and..."

"I am! Or I _would_ be—any other time but _now_." He shivered, not entirely from the clammy fog. "When we got to the Federation, I was figuring on keeping you hidden someplace, while I went and did some investigations." He opened the membranous wings wide, already gaining confidence in their manipulation. "But how'm I supposed to go walking into the stinking _Federation_, looking like _this_?"

"Well, we've got to do _something_. We can't simply—"

"We can't do _anything_, looking like this. Ariadne, they'll just shoot us on sight!" He turned away, finding nearby a pile of assorted gear from the Federation airship, clawing at it, searching for something he could wear over his wings. "Look, where's the ship parked? We've gotta get back aboard and head back home. Or at least hope there's enough fuel left to get us _someplace_ in the New Lands, out of this crummy place where they'll kill you...kill _us_ the minute they see us. Here's a military greatcoat I can wear... Where's the ship? Where did you bring it down?"

She pointed through the mist, not yet beginning to burn off in the dawn-light. "Down that way, toward the water. But don't try to go that way, you'll..."

"It's the _only_ way. We've got t'get _out_ of here while we still can, don't you _get_ it?" Maurice grabbed her wrist, pulling her down the sandy grade, but she held back, rotating her forearm to break the grip.

"You can't do that. You mustn't even try."

"What?" Startled by the steel in her voice, he skidded to a stop, staring at her as she stood with arms resolutely folded. "Why shouldn't—?"

From somewhere ahead of them, down the sloping beach, a brilliant blue-white glow blossomed out of the fog, sending forth a searing wind that lifted sand, scrub grass and small shrubs before it. Without thought, he jumped at Ariadne, pushing her down, covering her body with his own, extending his wings over them both. The fire rose into the sky with a hot roar, accelerating upward before changing to the sharp bark of an atmospheric engine that faded into the distance and vanished.

Maurice lifted himself from her, flapping the sand from his wings, almost afraid to ask the question whose answer he already knew. "That _smell_...it's thruster fuel, right?"

"Yes." Ariadne came to her feet beside him, not meeting his face. "I couldn't take the chance that the Federation might have been tracking the ship, and find us here. So I...set the gyropilot on a half-hour delay, dragged you and whatever I could carry out, then programmed a course deep into the Federation. It'll fly until it runs out of fuel or they shoot it down. Either way, they'll think that... Don't _look_ at me that way! It was the only logical thing to _do_!"

Maurice let out a slow sigh as he watched the fog swirl and part ahead, revealing frothing wavelets on the disturbed lake before it spiraled back in on itself. Somehow, his newly-altered Coralian retinas gave it all a disorientingly different cast. The Coralian eyes that would mean sure death—or worse—if the butchers of the Federation ever caught sight of them.

"Okay, then...let's sit down. You and me have gotta talk about what we're gonna do next."

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**Chapter Five**

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Renton fidgeted with one of Viyuuden's pencils. "This goes against my grain. Eureka and I should be the ones to be going in there after them."

"Be patient," said Viyuuden, still calmly seated at the desk once occupied by Norbu. "Your part in all this will, I think, be greater than you yet imagine."

"Well, I _still_ don't like it. Things're bad enough already without throwing in something new for us to worry about."

"I agree." Like Renton, Dominic had not sat down since the high priest had summoned them to his quarters, high in the pyramidal Temple. "I can't see this as anything more than a security risk of the worst kind."

Anemone looked to him, her eyes slitted. "It's more'n a _security_ risk. If she really _is_ who Viyuuden says she is, I've got some serious scores t'settle with her." Renton thought she had the air of a coiled python but said nothing.

"No more than I have," said Eureka. "But I'm willing to listen to what she has to say."

"_You_ didn't hafta _live_ with them. They were..."

Without a word, Viyuuden stood from the wooden seat before his desk. After only a few seconds, a discreet knock announced someone waiting on the other side. The tension in the room rose at once.

"Please come in," he said.

_I'm not gonna ask him how he knew somebody was out there,_ Renton told himself. _I saw too many of Norbu's tricks to be distracted that easily._

The door opened first a tentative crack, then a bit more, as though whoever waited on the other side were gaining the courage to enter. Eureka watched in her usual outwardly impassive way; Dominic's jaw tightened. But to Renton's considerable surprise, the face peeking out from behind the partially-open door was that of a young man, in a ref jacket with a _Sestroyesk Aircraft _patch on the breast. "Uh, is this the place I'm supposed to be?"

Renton peered at him, at first unsure. "Kazuya? Kaz _Aruno_? Are you in on this, too? Hey, Eureka and me haven't seen you for ages. Come on in, will you? Viyuuden said there's going to be somebody else..."

The door swung wide, revealing a petite girl with long amber hair and a face like an ice sculpture. "That would be me. My name is Lark; it's the only one I can remember. Mr. and Mrs. Thurston, I sincerely apologize for having tried to kill your children."

In an instant, a thousand half-formed thoughts danced back and forth between Renton and Eureka before she stepped forward and offered Lark her hand. "I know. Viyuuden has told us about the Federation's brainwashing, and what it did to you. And how hard you've worked these five years to overcome it. I...don't know if I'm really ready to do any forgiving, yet. But Viyuuden says you have something to talk about, and Renton and I would like to hear you out. Won't you come in?"

"_Bitch_!" With reflexes like liquid lightning, Anemone leaped into the air, passing entirely over her husband, to come down hard on Lark and smash them both to the floor. She straddled the girl's chest, pounding slap after powerful slap across her face, each one ringing like a whiplash in the confined office. "Where the hell was all that 'forgiveness' crap _then_, huh?" _Slap_. "You and all the rest of Dewey's little pet _scum_." _Slap_. "_Say_ something, dammit, don't just _look_ at me! You weren't so prissy and polite in _those_ days, were you? You filthy little—"

Kazuya jumped forward, forcing himself between them while Anemone kicked and punched at him, outraged that he should separate her from her prey. "_Hey_! Mrs. Sorel, what're you _doing_? Let her alone, she hasn't..."

"Like _hell_ she hasn't! Her and all those other little—"

The stunned Dominic was at Anemone's side in an instant, grabbing her about the waist, pulling her up and away from the impassive Lark with all his strength. "Come on, Anemone, come _on_. I know how it was for you, but all that's _over_, now. It's behind you, behind _us_. Okay? You've got a real life, now, Beautiful, just keep focused on that, all right?"

"I don't..." Her eyes overflowing with tears, she fell into his arms and pressed her face to his shoulder, jerking with each silent sob.

"Focus your thought upon the Light Beyond, Mrs. Sorel," said Viyuuden in his soothing baritone. "The rage and humiliations of the past no longer have any power over you. Lark, are you badly injured?"

Kazuya rose to his feet, drawing Lark up with him, away from Viyuuden's outstretched hand. Red patches showed here and there on her pale cheeks, but no signs of pain—or anger. "Hey, what _is_ all this stuff, anyway? If I'da known _this_ was gonna happen, I wouldn't've let her come up here at _all_. She doesn't deserve—"

"Yes, I do," she broke in, only the faintest quiver touching her voice. "I deserve it all."

"But how—?"

The priest smiled at Kaz. "There's a great deal that you do not know about Lark, Mr. Aruno. She was, before the founding of the New Lands, a part of the late Colonel Dewey Novak's personal entourage. Specifically, of an elite unit called the 'Swallowtails.' All were young girls, hand-picked for great beauty, intelligence and ability, then psychologically manipulated into serving him in all ways."

"Yes," Lark agreed in a blank monotone.

"After the Colonel's demise, that deep conditioning caused them to seek revenge upon his perceived murderers. It was, of course, exploited and encouraged by the current Federation regime. Three of them made their way to Thuu Bak in an attempt to—"

"To kill Maurice and Ariadne. Yes. We did that. _I_ did that. And we nearly succeeded."

Kaz looked from Lark to Viyuuden and back again. "It's _true_, then, that crazy story you told me on the way over here? _You_ were the one who shoved that knife in Maurice's back that night?"

"Yes. Viyuuden said I should hold nothing back from you. From _any_ of you. Please understand that we were war orphans, conditioned from an early age to worship The Colonel, to adore him, to do _anything_ to...to please him. Just like Anemone was."

Anemone herself stared, stunned as if she had been struck. She opened her mouth, but no words came forth.

"When we were aboard the Colonel's flagship, we hated Anemone at once. She was—in our minds—a rival for his affections. We tormented her without mercy. But cruel as it was, that was the least of our crimes. We willingly took part in _mass murder_, all of us." She turned her face to the floor. "And I can never atone for the things I've done."

No one spoke for a moment. Then Eureka went to her, holding both palms outward "I...know how it feels to have blood on your hands. And how it feels to need atonement. And I know the shame of being _used_ by the Federation, too. So does Anemone, even if she's too upset to realize it right now." She took Lark's limp hand in her own. "I still don't know if I'm ready to forgive you for what you tried to do to my children." Briefly, she glanced toward Renton. "But I've become a different person now than I was...before. I can at least give _you_ the chance to be a different person, too."

Moved by Eureka's compassion as he was, Renton's own thoughts slid along other lines entirely. "Okay, Viyuuden. _Now_ are you gonna tell us what all this's about? You didn't bring us all here just to hear Lark confess."

"I want to know the same thing," said Dominic, his eyes hard as he stroked Anemone's hair. "There's an emergency going on right now, and time's especially precious. What's your point?"

Viyuuden allowed himself a tight smile. "Always the practical man, Commander Sorel. One would think that having lived such an improbable life, you'd allow your imagination greater rein from time to time. In any event, Gregory Egan and I have been discussing the current situation at length. We both agree that although the three Heirs are fulfilling the Will of Vodarek in entering the Federation, it is not enough for us here in the Heart of the World to sit passively by and wait as they do so. In short, they may require help and protection."

"_Now_ you're making sense," said Anemone as she wiped her nose.

"Thank you, Mrs. Sorel. We are assembling a five-member covert strike team, composed of those with particular experience and expertise in the Federation, its intelligence workings and its high-level command structure. Two of them are present now. The Messenger and the Chosen—" he nodded in the direction of Eureka and Renton "—obviously cannot be risked on such a journey..."

"But we—"

"No, Mr. Thurston. Your wife's courage and yours is beyond question, but you _must_ remain here. Both of you know this."

"Okay," said Dominic at once, his forehead jewel flashing in unison with Anemone's, "then _we'll_ do it. When do we leave?"

"I'm afraid that the two of you are disqualified as well. Your position as chief of our Security forces is particularly critical right now, as is your and your wife's link to your daughter." He tapped the wheel tattoo between his eyebrows. "Not to mention the obvious fact that both of you would be instantly recognizable. No, I was referring to our guests, here: Miss Lark and Mr. Aruno."

Anemone's face went scarlet. "_Her_?"

"_Us_?" said Kazuya at the same instant.

"Yes, exactly so. Miss Lark has been part of the Federation command hierarchy at the very highest levels, and will be an invaluable advisor to the team. Mr. Aruno has had experience evading the Federation. He also lived within its borders for the first thirteen years of his life, and knows its society and culture well. I can now reveal that his sister, Tomika, has already agreed to be part of our team, as has Mrs. Yuki Novak."

Renton knew a fresh twinge of fear. "Tommy? Yuki? They _can't_ go! They're both wanted criminals in the Federation! If either of them—"

"I'll do it," said Kaz at once. "I'm just as wanted as Tommy is. If she can take the chance, I can, too."

"Thank you." Viyuuden looked toward Lark. "And you? Do you still hold to your decision to be a part of our team? Dr. Mischa Egan assures me that you are sound enough to undertake such a mission, and I myself have no doubt that you have fully recovered your psychological health."

Anemone took a step forward, though Dominic held her firmly by one arm. "Well, _I've_ got _plenty_ of doubts! You're gonna send that filthy little snake in after _my daughter_? Eureka; Renton—she tried to _murder_ your _own_ kids! Once she gets back over to the Federation, she'll turn them in and try to worm her way back into the High Command. Are you gonna _trust_ her?"

Renton's mouth went dry, and his and Eureka's thoughts glimmered furiously back and forth. At last, he looked around the room at them all. "Yeah, we are. Look, Anemone, even if what you say is true—and we're not so sure it is—there'll still be Tommy, Yuki and Kaz along to keep anything bad from happening."

"I can't _believe_ it! Are you all _crazy_? Dom—tell Viyuuden we aren't gonna agree to this crap!"

But Dominic hesitated, his face working and twisting with the outward signs of agonizing decision. "I...I think Renton and Eureka and Viyuuden are right. I understand why you'd feel this way, but these really are the people who can do the most to help Phaedra."

"This is _my daughter_ we're talking about! I'm not gonna—"

"_No_, Anemone." He cut her off at once, cool and flat. "She's _our_ daughter. And I don't love her any less than you do."

Anemone twisted herself free of his arm, fury smoldering in her Coralian eyes. Without another word she pushed past Renton and Eureka and blazed from the room, pausing only for a poisonous glare at Lark before slamming the heavy door behind her.

Viyuuden came to Dominic's side and put a hand to his shoulder. "She acts from fear, not from her heart. She will realize that, once she sees clearly again." Dominic only nodded.

Renton, who could understand his tortured feelings precisely, filled the awkward silence with a new question of his own: "Listen, Viyuuden... You said this undercover team will have _five_ members. But Yuki and Tommy and Kaz and Lark only make four. Who's the other one? And who's going to lead them?"

Though his face gave nothing away, the priest's eyes strayed to the easterly window. "_I_ am. I have instructed the Guardians of the Flame to deliver appropriate equipment to the airship that Gregory and Katsuhiro have made available for us. Mr. Aruno and Miss Lark, please report to New Tresor hangar VX-17 at eight o'clock this evening."

—

—

—

**Chapter Six**

—

—

Maurice slipped and stumbled on the loose slope. He dropped to his knees, panting, and called to Ariadne. "Wait a second. We're above the fog now; can we take a break for a couple minutes?"

"Again?" Looking bulky and clumsy in her shortened military overcoat, shirt and trousers, she waddled in his direction and lifted her goggles. "We've only been climbing for two and a half hours. It must be the transformation, don't you think? I'll bet it used a lot of bodily resources to grow your wings and make the other internal changes. Are you feeling all right?"

"Yeah, sure. Tired and hungry is all; you're probably right. And this backpack keeps rubbing my wings sore, even with the coat to cushion them. Don't think I ever understood how clumsy these things are."

"They're not clumsy at all, when you get used to them—and you will." A rippling showed under her coat, as if a large family of squirrels might be scrabbling up her back, as she stretched her own wings. "I'm certain I can generate trapar, now. I've started realizing a _lot_ of things about us. We were able to work in unison to bring my body back to life and to create the trapar stream that grounded the plane. I think now that when a human-coralian couple reach that level of closeness, it sets off a change in them. Like Mother and Father. Remember that it wasn't until they started _merging_ that Father grew his wings and the two of them got their trapar-manipulation talent."

Maurice sat heavily to the spongy, sawdust-laden ground and tried, without success, to work out the aches in his rearranged shoulders. "Yeah, you're prob'ly right. Mischa'll want to hear all about it." _If we ever see her again_.

He squashed the dangerous thought and shifted to a more immediate topic. "Look, I think we've come at least seven or eight kilos through this grubby forest. I'm pretty sure I heard an airship about half an hour ago, but we haven't actually _seen_ any since we got clear of the fog. While I get my breath back, d'you think you could tell me a little more about why we're here, and what it is you think we're gonna do?"

"Of course. Like I told you, something very dangerous is going on in the Federation, and—"

"And you still didn't explain how you _know_ that." Something moved in the sky overhead, and he braced himself to run before deciding it was no more than a large soaring bird. "What makes you so sure about all this stuff, and why d'you think _we_ can do anything about it?"

"It's...hard to explain." Ariadne edged herself nearer to him. "I could _feel_ it, all the way back in Neuchatel. I could feel it in the trapar, if you know what I mean. Almost like the thoughts of the Coral itself. Haven't _you_ felt anything like that? Since you transformed, I mean."

He did his best to let his mind settle into a meditative state, but tranquility would not come. He shook his head No.

"Well, I suppose it's too soon, for you. It's coming from both below us and..." She raised one arm toward the sky. "...and from up _there_, somewhere. And I _know,_ somehow, that we need something that's in the Arkship."

Maurice snorted. "_If_ your 'something' even _exists_—don't forget _that_. Look, much as I'd like to stay and take a nap, we better keep moving. The Federation's clear-cut this land so many times that these stumpy gene-tweaked trees don't give much in the way of cover. You can tell me more while we walk. You're sure there's a town in this direction?"

"Yes." She beckoned, and he staggered to his feet. "I saw it on the holo display before we landed. It should be about another ten or twelve kilometers inland."

"Ten or twelve..." He pulled his polarized goggles back down, covering both his Coralian eyes and the neural jewel in his forehead. They dimmed the noontime sun but did nothing to lessen its oppressive heat. "Look, Ariadne, I don't see how we're gonna... Wait a minute. What's that?"

From nearby—or perhaps, he realized, the nearness was only a trick of his newly-sensitized hearing—Maurice caught the drone of a motorized vehicle, more than one, moving in their direction. "Something's coming."

"Yes. And voices, a lot of them. Some of them giving orders, some of them—"

"Come _on_!" He grabbed her by one wrist and dragged her to a cluster of three gnarled and stunted pine trees, pulling them both into concealment beneath the closely-woven branches. "Shhh! Somebody must've seen our ship land...pull that coat collar up over your head, and lay flat on the ground."

"Don't you think...?"

"_Shhhh_!"

A woman and two men hurried out of the forest, gasping with the effort of a long and desperate run. One of the men stumbled on a broken branch, but the other two heaved him to his feet at once. He shouted something unintelligible and the others looked round, terror in their sweat-shiny faces.

From behind a low rise some twenty-five meters to their left leaped a low, six-wheeled rough-terrain vehicle, its turbines groaning as it crested the grade. Maurice had no need to decipher the peculiar shield-shaped insignia on its camouflaged sides to know that it meant trouble.

"_Run_!" shrilled the woman, and the three fugitives turned, chests heaving, toward their impossible retreat. But the patrol vehicle slid to a stop and an arm protruded from one window; an arm tipped by a heavy military pistol. Two shots blasted through the silent woods. The woman fell, rolling, to the ground. One of the others cried out in remorse or rage, then crumpled where he stood, motioning the second man to keep going.

A hard-faced officer of some sort, in a green uniform trimmed by golden stars of rank, jumped from the patrol vehicle and steadied his pistol against the door frame. "Stop!" he bellowed. "You are in violation of the Treason Act and seven counts of lesser charges. The penalty for all such crimes is—"

He never finished explaining the penalty, for the woods came alive with small-arms fire. Shooting randomly, now, into the forest, the officer swore and ordered the driver of the vehicle to retreat as he jumped back inside.

But it was already too late. Five explosions—from the sound, Maurice guessed them to be RPP fragmentation rounds—ripped into the passenger compartment and detonated, sending their razor-clawed shards of torn metal through glass, upholstery and the bodies of the four soft humans inside. Their screams lasted no more than an instant, before an explosive SFAR projectile blasted the car itself with a bright fireball of flame. Even in the cover of the trees, Maurice could feel the waves of heat against his face, and he moved closer to Ariadne, shielding her as best he could from the bits of searing debris that still rained around them.

_Maurice__—__those first two people, the ones on the ground! They're still alive_!

_Yeah, I know_. _But if we try to help them, whoever's out there shooting is gonna get _us, _too_.

_We can't just let them _die!

_Maybe after things quiet down a little_—

_They don't have that much time_!

Before he could stop her, Ariadne scrabbled to her feet and ran out to the two people lying on the ground fifteen meters away.

Maurice ripped off his goggles and hurried after her, expecting a storm of bullets to cut them them both down at any second. "Get _back_ here, will you? It's too dangerous!"

"I know." She crouched by the side of the bleeding man, touching his face, probing here and there for the location of the bullet wounds. "You get the woman, Maurice."

He cursed, but ran on past to the motionless woman. _Too late to turn back now._ She seemed to have taken several shots in the back, none of which had penetrated her heart. "I think you're gonna be okay," he said to her with a weak smile that he hoped would cheer her up. Grabbing her bare arms, he ran his hands along them as though stroking a frightened puppy. "Nobody knows how the Gift really gets transmitted, so I don't know how to get you healed any faster. Just touching you for a couple seconds oughta do it, I think."

"No." The woman raised one quivering hand, struggling to point. "No. He is..." Whatever she meant to say dissolved in a fit of coughing that brought flecks of blood to her lips.

"Save it till you feel better, okay? The Coralian Gift is gonna make you..."

Something hard prodded at Maurice's back. "Move away from her, you son of a bitch. _Now_."

At once, he looked toward Ariadne, who stared back, her goggles giving her the aspect of a startled insect. _I've got a gun in my back, right? I'm gonna twist around and grab the barrel, and you run as fast as you can._

_You shouldn't__—_

Maurice rolled to one side, the way he'd been taught by the Guardians of the Flame, and stretched out his arms to where he knew the gun barrel had to be. Grabbing at it, he put all his weight into the move, deflecting it aside and away from him, nearly wrenching it free.

The man wrestling with him for the gun grunted under his breath and fought with all his strength to retrieve the weapon for a moment, then froze, his face blank and stunned. "You...you're..."

"Let us alone! We didn't do anything to you!" From the edges of his vision, Maurice registered more people emerging from the scrub trees, two; five; a dozen. The odds were worsening steadily. "Gimme that!" He pulled the gun away from its owner's strangely unresisting hands and hefted it—a heavy-caliber carbine, a simple projectile weapon. "Everybody stay back! I'll... What're you all _looking_ at, anyway?"

"He has the _eyes_," someone cried out, and Maurice understood, then.

_My eyes. I left my goggles back under that tree. They can see my Coralian eyes. How stupid can I get? And there're too many of them. Ariadne! Run, as fast as you..._

Someone touched him on the back of one leg. Lurching to one side, Maurice watched the woman on the ground force herself up on one elbow, pointing at him with her free hand. "He..." she rasped, this time without blood, "He's healing me. Don't...hurt them, Gabe. They're the _ones_. They're _here_."

The man who had prodded Maurice with the gun nodded. "Yes. We understand, now." He faced Maurice, his unshaven face grim and fearful. "And the girl? Your sister?"

"She's my _wife. _Who _are_ you people? We're not here to bother you. What d'you all _want_?"

With deliberate steps, Ariadne came to his side and removed her own goggles. _Don't be so hostile, Maurice. They're not military._

_Then who_ are _they_?

The man waiting before them dipped his head in token respect, yet showed no sign of surprise. "I'm sorry for my mistake, Blessed One. My name is Gabriel Helder, and these are my friends. We saw you bending over our wounded, and... In those military coats, we drew the wrong conclusion. I know I speak for us all when I offer my apologies. We're from the Vodarek community of the town of LaMarche, about seven kilometers from here." He gestured toward the still-smoking hulk of the patrol car. "The Secpos dislike it when we travel without official permission. It seems that they knew—or were tipped off—that we would be in this place."

All around, the rest of the group approached with hesitant steps, one or two at a time, whispering among themselves. Maurice now saw that they dressed in rather drab everyday work clothing, none of which fit particularly well. All the same, he remained edgy till he saw them lower their assorted weapons. "So how come you _are_ in this place?"

The woman on the ground beside him tottered to her feet, wreathed in smiles as she touched her neck and chest, to the wonderment of the others. "The pain's going away! It's astonishing! And look—Václav's getting up, too!" She pointed to the bullet-ridden man Ariadne had healed, now rising with the help of a tearful woman whom Maurice assumed to be his wife. "You _are_ the Blessed Ones! It's true, you've come!"

"We're _not_ 'blessed,'" said Ariadne. "And we have no idea what's happening here. You're all acting as though you were _expecting_ us."

Helder smiled. "We have been expecting you, yes. But for now, we must all get to a safer place. May I have my rifle back? Thank you. When those Secpos fail to return, another patrol will be dispatched; maybe sooner, if they managed to contact their headquarters before we took them out. Please come with us. Karel; Atsushi; Feodor—the wounded are still weak and unable to walk. Help them."

"Wait a minute," objected Maurice. "Why _should_ we go with you? You say you're Vodarek, but how do we know that? This could all be some kind of Federation setup."

He gave the matter a few seconds' thought. "That's true. Nevertheless, we _are_ communicants of Vodarek's Light, and you are in great danger if you stay here. Whatever your strange purpose in coming to the Federation, you won't be able to accomplish it in the government's hands. Please come."

"Yes," said Ariadne at once. "We will.. Come on, Maurice."

"But—"

But Gabriel Helder had already turned away, gathering the group together and helping to support the wounded woman. Maurice could only fume, take Ariadne's hand, and follow.

—

—

—

**Chapter Seven**

—

—

"Target is now lost to mass-detectors, IR and radar over Federation airspace," reported the LZ-129's radio. "But you're approaching the point where it first made touchdown. Over, Bird."

Max Condor jerked fully awake, nearly falling out of the pilot's seat. "Uh, yokai, Nest. Got it." Out the side window, the pink dawn revealed nothing but a cottony sea of fog—presumably from the lake lying invisibly below—that extended about a quarter of the way up a series of inland foothills. "Looks thick as oatmeal down there, though. Radar might get a little funky that close to the ground; we'll have t'use ultraviolet imaging to put down. Maybe even HF sonar. It's goin' to be an instrument-only landing. Tricky."

"Roger that, Bird. You're still planning on putting down there, even though the target's moved on?"

Max lifted his eyebrows toward Phaedra, who nodded and silently mouthed _That's where they are_.

"Yeah, affirmative, Nest."

"Whatever you say. We have satellite visuals of that area from forty-six hours ago in clear daylight. We're downloading them to your database. You can texture-map them on top of your UV and radar scans."

"Acknowledge, Nest. Receiving it now." The wireframe holo topographical map generated by the ship's navigational systems resolved itself into a high-noon photo display showing a long, curved coastline where gravelly beaches met the waters of the Collin Sea. No large human settlements showed, at least as of two days past. On one particularly broad stretch of beachfront, the red outline of an aircraft throbbed insistently, indicating the New Tresor computers' best guess as to the last known landing spot of the stolen Federation gunship.

Phaedra reached across the instrument board to cut off the audio. "Are you gonna land us right beside there?"

"That's the idea, yeah. _If_ the ship is still in that spot, and _if_ it's still safe. It's been almost two hours since that gunship touched down on that beach, and a lot could've happened in that time. For all we know, the whole area might be crawling with Federation ground troops by now. I hope you're right about Maurice and Ariadne being down there."

"I am. Trust me."

He re-engaged the microphone. "Okay, Nest, we're getting ready to roost. Wish us luck."

"Roger that. We...have a last-minute message here from the Boss, to Candy."

Max looked sideward at Phaedra, who was already producing a petulant scowl at the mention of her code name. "Sure, let's have it. Then we'll go to radio silence till we're down."

"Acknowledged. The message is... 'Keep your head.'"

Phaedra blushed and rolled her eyes. "Dad has this crazy idea that I'm...kind of..._impulsive_...sometimes," she whispered to Max.

"Uh-huh." He flashed her a jaunty smile. "Okay, Nest. You'll get our beacon signal as soon as we touch down. Otherwise, we'll check back at twelve-hour intervals on the encrypted PR frequencies you gave us."

"Roger that, Bird, good hunting. Over and out."

His smile faded as he prepared the LZ-129 for its blind landing. _Full topo holographic display, on; autoaltimetrics, on._ With a practiced seat-of-the-pants sense of motion, he throttled back the trapar accelerators and closed the boundary-layer slots on both wings, at the same time lighting the primary vertical thrusters. All thruster readouts winked green and Max switched control to the VTOL gimbal stick.

Even Phaedra remained silent as they dropped vertically downward toward the sea of mist that waited below. Lower, lower... They came to the level of the fog bank and in an instant, even the wingtips were invisible, swallowed up by the smothering gray mist.

All of Max's senses now focused on the thruster gimbal and the heads-up virtual display surrounding him. He slowed their descent, drifting the airship to port, closer to the red outline but not directly above it...slower...no wind drift. The insistent fear that the two-day old satellite photo being used by the holo display might or might not match what currently lay below gnawed at him. Sharply aware of Phaedra's eyes upon him, he whistled a meaningless tune and gave her a sly wink of reassurance. One hundred meters, said the radar altimeter, fifty...thirty... "Ready for touchdown," he announced. Ten...

A soft crunching of fine rock rustled through the landing struts and the unmistakable stability of solid land held the ship in its grasp.

Phaedra hopped up from her seat. "Great, Max! We're down! I'll get the hatch—"

"_No_! I mean, wait, let me do a quick scan around with UV and radar. There might be somebody we'd rather not meet, out there." As the thrusters still sputtered at warm ready, he swung the side-looking sensors around them, finding nothing of any obvious menace. Max shut off the fuel pumps and the cabin went deadly silent, stirred only by the soft purr of the ventilation blowers.

"Think it's safe?" whispered Phaedra.

"I don't know for sure. But we better find out before the thruster nozzles cool down, so we can make a quick takeoff if we need to." He yanked the lever to release the cabin steps, then he unsecured the pressure seal on the door and pushed it outward with one foot. No welcoming barrage of weapons fire raked the ship. "So far so good. Let me go out first. Can you get the ship airborne again if I get blasted?"

She shook her head. "No. _You're_ the hot pilot, remember?"

"Uh-huh. I'll try to keep that in mind." Max pushed the hatch fully open and descended the short metal stairs to the beach, alert for the slightest sign of a threat. Only when the wet gravel grated beneath his boots did he wipe the sweat from his brow with one sleeve.

The thrusters had burned away the fog for about a ten-meter radius; already it slowly closed back in again, leaving him feeling very much isolated and vulnerable. But no one crept from behind the half-glimpsed trees, nor could he hear any sound more menacing than the gentle slap of waves on the shore. A few meters to their port side, the gravel showed four symmetrical scorch marks where another craft had recently touched down and departed.

He allowed himself a quiet sigh of relief before calling up to the cockpit. "Looks okay so far. You can come on down, now."

Phaedra hurried out, crouched with arms wide and looked around her with quick, nervous little twitches. "Nothing here. Geez, you sure are _paranoid_."

"Even paranoids have enemies—and right now we've got plenty. You still sure that Ariadne and Maurice are around here?"

"I think so." Her eyes went vacant for a few seconds and she turned away from the surf, pointing up the slope before them. "Yeah, they're _that_ way, both of them, somewhere. I can't figure why their ship took off without them, though."

"Maybe _I_ can." Max unlatched the LZ-129's cargo hatch and let it drop to the ground below. "See, once the fog blows off this beach, this plane'll stand out like a trapar geyser to anything that flies over. I'll bet they sent that Federation ship away on gyropilot, so no air patrols would spot it here." Almost fondly, he stroked the duralumin fuselage. "I don't know what _their_ plans are, but you and me're going to want a way out of here. So we'll have to camouflage it as best we can. There's a bunch of tiedown netting in back; we'll use it to cover as much of the ship as we can, then stick branches and leaves in it. Won't be perfect, but unless the Federation's targeting this area in particular, it should keep casual snoopers away. Come on, let's get it done as fast as possible, before this fog breaks."

Phaedra made a sour face, but came to join him all the same. "Aye aye, Mighty Lord Commander Condor. Will there be any further orders, sir?"

"Just one." He dug about in the plane's medical supply compartment before coming up with a quart bottle labeled _**DISINFECTANT Hydrogen Peroxide .02%**_. "It's time you made a visit to the hairdresser."

—

—

—

**Chapter Eight**

—

—

Their little group emerged from the gnarled woods in early afternoon, overlooking the outskirts of LaMarche. Maurice realized that he'd been expecting some primitive village of thatched huts surrounding a smoky temple, with serene Vodarek ascetics chanting around a Compac drive.

In actuality, LaMarche seemed to him much like a quarter-size replica of Bellforest. Dingy little shops and storefronts waited on either side of a poorly-paved main street, their slumber disturbed only by the few automobiles that chugged past from time to time. The billowing smokestack of some sort of factory building showed itself several miles beyond, but Maurice could make out no identifying details.

Helder raised one hand, and the Vodarek came to a stop. "I'd better take them to my house," he said as he handed his rifle to one of the women. "Since Arda and I live furthest toward the edge of town. We can meet again tomorrow evening, just as we would for our usual meditation session. For now, please return the weapons to our hiding place, then split up and make your separate ways back. You all know how to get in touch in case of...trouble."

One of them—Maurice saw that it was Václav, the man healed by Ariadne—nodded vigorously. "All right, Gabe. But before we part, I'd like to personally thank the Bearers of Vodarek's Sacred Light for what they did for me. The Knowing of Vodarek can accomplish miracles, and this day I've seen one. Thank you, Prince and Princess."

"We're not—" But a flash of warning from Ariadne stifled Maurice's protest at once.

The woman whose wounds he had healed himself made a little bow. "I thank you, too, Blessed Ones. Whatever your inscrutable purpose in coming here, I know that it can only be in perfect harmony with the Will."

"Uh, yeah. And thanks to all of you." He considered raising his goggles in a kind of benediction, but remembered the armed vehicle that had exploded out of the woods, and thought better of it.

"Come," said Gabriel Helder as the others dispersed down into the town.

Ariadne went with him, and once more Maurice had no choice but to follow. "What's all this 'separate ways' stuff, anyway? Where are they taking the guns? Why can't you go back into town together?" His boot caught in a protruding rock; he swore, then hurried to catch up.

"The Way of Vodarek is outlawed in the Federation—as are all weapons in civilian hands. We're officially designated as a 'Hate Cult' by the government. The Secpos probably suspect there's a Circle of Light in LaMarche, but this is a small town. We're not worth persecuting. Although—" he frowned as he walked "—if they suspect we had anything to do with the destruction of that patrol vehicle, that could change. That's why it's best for us not to be seen returning from the Forest Exploitation Zone as a group, especially carrying weapons."

Maurice remained wary. "You don't seem too upset, for somebody who just shot up a Federation patrol."

"The Knowing of Vodarek brings serenity and clear thinking in times of crisis. It helps us in evading the attentions of the Secpos."

"What's a "Secpo?" Their path widened as they neared the edges of the town, into a dirt road that passed in switchbacks along the face of the downward slope.

"Internal State Security Police. Please watch your footing; the gravel is very loose in this spot. It's possible that someone in the town saw us leaving and informed the Secpos. If so, there could be reprisals."

"We've brought a lot of trouble on you," said Ariadne, holding tight to Maurice's hand as they crossed a narrow, eroded section of the trail. "I'm sorry."

"Don't blame yourselves, Blessed Ones. You are one with Vodarek's Will. Now we must turn down this alley to the left."

The alley had once been paved, Maurice could see, but now amounted to little more than another dirt path between small, dark buildings of weatherbeaten and crumbling brick. It smelled of mold and garbage, and the shrill sounds of small squalling children competed with barking dogs and the clatter of freight trains from not far away. He assumed they were being led into the town through some long-abandoned slum, until he heard Helder announce "We're here. Welcome to my home."

In long-ago better days, Maurice decided, this might have been the storefront for a small shop. But now the plate-glass windows that had once displayed whatever was sold here were long vanished, replaced with multiple layers of unpainted chipboard, each one nailed carelessly over the last. Here and there, stubborn patches of unpeeled paint whispered of better days. _Even Neuchatel wasn't_ this _bad_, he flashed to Ariadne.

_Neuchatel was preserved at its peak. This town is just...decaying_.

Next to the barricaded windows, Helder pulled at the door—which stuck for a moment—then gestured them in. "I'm afraid you won't find our home much like anything you know in the Heart of the World," he said, as if sensing their thoughts.

Beneath her polarized goggles, Ariadne put on her best smile. "I haven't been out of the New Lands since I was a baby, so I haven't got anything to compare it with." She marched on ahead, with Maurice close behind.

Inside, the sudden darkness overwhelmed them. Fearing a trap, Maurice pulled off his own goggles and peered into the gloom. He flattened himself against one wall as Helder edged ahead of them, apparently understanding that they would need a guide. "I suppose it's a bit dark when you're coming right in out of the full daylight. Please just follow the sound of my footsteps; our apartment is in the back."

"Aren't there any lights back here?"

"Once, yes." The man sighed, as dead and echoless as his footfalls. "This was the living quarters of the shopkeepers who ran the store in front. But that was long ago, and the hall wires were confiscated by the government. For their copper, you see."

Maurice found that his new Coralian eyes quickly acclimated themselves to the dim passageway. The smooth plaster walls, the wooden flooring and Gabriel Helder all showed themselves in various shades of dull green, though Ariadne glowed brightly with some fascinating inner radiance. Then Helder came to a triple-locked door and opened its clumsy deadbolts one by one. Anemic sunlight drizzled in through high, narrow windows beyond, and a cautious female voice called out to them. "Gabe? Is that you?"

"It's me. And I brought some company along."

A wave of potent scents washed over them: powerful cleaning soap; the musty book-smell of a library; cabbage; weak coffee; a very old toilet. From around a cabinet at the end of the hall, a woman with tired brown hair over a lively face peered out. "Oh. It was true, then? Someone really came from the New Lands?" She fluttered one hand to her cheek. "Wait...Gabe, no... Not_ those..._?"

Ariadne peeled off her goggles and drew back the hood of her military greatcoat. "No, we're not Eureka and Renton. We're Ariadne and Maurice. And we're sorry to put you to so much trouble. Are you Arda?"

"I...yes... Oh, I feel so foolish." She patted at her hair and smoothed down the front of her threadbare blue housedress. "It's not as if we have celebrities here very often...or at all. Come in, please."

In sharp contrast to the dim hallway, the sun flooded the living area through four large windows. The Helders' furniture seemed to Maurice a mismatched bag of shopworn couches and armchairs, comfortable-looking but of uncertain vintage. Several small wooden shelf sets—perhaps homemade—held little bric-a-brac items of glass and china, apparently of some sentimental significance. He felt as if he'd been invited to browse in a cheerful but shabby secondhand shop. "Thank you," he said. "Look, if you don't mind me asking, now...how _did_ you know we were coming here?"

Gabriel shrugged. "The Coral is our portal to the levels of higher reality—as you know well, I'm sure. Sometimes things of importance to the Coralian Mind suggest themselves during our meditations. Right at the moment, you're in its thoughts a lot. As we meditated—we of the Vodarek community, that is—we could feel _someone_ important approaching from the New Lands." He tossed his black cloth cap to the couch. Then, at an accusing glance from Arda, he picked it up and hung it on a wooden coat rack near the door. "But not even our Lay Priest imagined it would be one of the Royal Family."

"We're _not_ 'royal'..." A tickle of sweat crawled down his back between his wings, reminding Maurice how unwise it would be to argue with someone whose help they so desperately needed. "Just call us 'Maurice' and 'Ariadne,'" okay? We're really thankful that you took us in, but after watching what happened this afternoon..."

Arda crept closer to her husband. "Did something happen?"

"The Secpos showed up," he said, and took her hand in a comforting way. "Miku and Karl shot up a patrol crawler and the three thugs inside."

"_Shot up_? I should have been there _with_ you..."

"I'm glad you weren't. Someone from town must have seen us going to the woods in a group, and informed on us; probably thought we were holding rites up there. If you'd gone too, it would have looked even more suspicious."

_She's afraid_, flashed Ariadne to Maurice.

_They both are, serenity or not. I always knew the Federation persecuted the Vodarek, but when you see it up close like this, it's not just stories any more_. "We shouldn't even _be_ here at your house. If you'll just let us stay here till it gets dark, we'll get going and not make things any more dangerous."

"Oh, but you mustn't..."

"Um, if you don't think I'm being nosy, what kind of stuff do you do, Gabriel? For a job, I mean. Won't anybody notice that you're not at work?"

For the first time, the man appeared to relax, if only by a few degrees. "It's Wednesday. Half-day at the foundry, that is. The Ministry's theory is that everybody'll go out and buy things, to vitalize the economy." He gave a bitter snort. "As if the economy isn't already a corpse."

"Gabriel..." warned his wife, looking apprehensively toward the windows.

"Oh, come on, Arda, _they're_ not going to turn us in! These are the Heirs to the Blessing, not some crowd of layabouts down at the plant. That long, stupid war against the Coral bankrupted the entire Federation. And what the War didn't finish, the loss of the outer provinces to the InterDominion did. Everybody knows it, but no one dares to say it." His eyes fell as he faced Ariadne and Maurice. "Except in front of people we know we can trust. And there are so damn _few_ of them."

Maurice felt Ariadne's waves of sympathy, but kept himself focused on their own dangerous position. "Well, then, like I said, if we could just stay here for a little while, till it's dark, we'll be getting out."

"But what is it you're doing here at all?" said Arda. "Why would the two of you travel so far and take such terrible chances, just to come to a place where the government—and the people who believe its lies—don't even admit that you exist?"

"We're going to—"

But he cut Ariadne off at once. "We shouldn't say anything about that. On account of the Federation, see. In case they catch us..."

"Or in case they capture _us_," finished Gabriel, "and interrogate us. No, don't apologize, you're right, it's the intelligent thing to do. But in the meantime, let us help you in any way we can. At the very least, you need less conspicuous clothing than those too-big Federation uniforms. And something to eat. Let me draw the curtains, and we can talk while we're outfitting you for this journey of yours. There's so much we want to ask you. It's not often we get to speak freely with anyone from Outside."

"Okay, sure. We'll be happy to—"

The Helders both twitched as a coarse buzz sounded from the little alcove where the entrance hall met the living room. "Now, who'd be phoning at this time of day," murmured Gabriel, trying and failing to hide the concern in his voice. He picked up the handset as if it were a burning branch. "Yes? Oh, sure, Hiyu. Sure, this is Gabe. What's up? Uh-huh. Really?Just now? Okay, we will. Thanks."

"What was it?" asked Arda at once.

"It's Hiyu. He says there's something on the video that we should watch, right away."

Maurice stepped aside as Helder hefted an old-model videoscreen from behind the couch, put it atop a low table and connected it with a long, frayed extension cord marked by more splices than could easily be counted. The faceplate hissed for a moment, then dissolved into a sober-faced announcer behind a desk. "...confirmed by the optical excellence of Federation satellites. We should have...yes, I'm getting the signal, now. We have a live feed from Federation surveillance satellite LN03..."

The picture fluttered and twisted, then changed to an image of a dark oval, apparently an impact crater. "What you see is our Moon, Citizens. That area in the center of the screen is called the '_Mare Crisium_,' an ancient name whose meaning is long lost to us."

Ariadne scowled. "They're deliberately zooming in on a part of the Moon that isn't touched by the inscription the Coral made for Mother and Father. That's _stupid_. Everyone can see the whole Moon at night, anyway."

"Yeah," said Maurice, only half-listening.

"Now if you look closely—yes, we're zooming in, now—you can see a somewhat rough, dark band running across the entire _Mare _from lunar north to lunar south. That, the Federation Science Ministry now tells us, is actually a _canyon_, or a crack, if you will, nearly three hundred kilometers long. It appeared less than five hours ago. We have here in our studio a representative of the Federation Aero Forces, Colonel Valentina Tereshkova, to explain its significance to us. Colonel?"

"Naturally, they'd get someone from the _military_ to tell us everything's under control," said Arda.

Colonel Tereshkova sat herself to one of the plastic studio chairs, which squealed beneath her bulk. The camera operator quickly focused on her broad pink face instead. "Yes. The High Command has empowered me to reassure all loyal citizens that their military forces are monitoring this phenomenon at all times. It seems that the predictions of our late, martyred Colonel Dewey Novak are being fulfilled before our eyes."

"He was a man of great vision, certainly," the announcer agreed, screwing his face into even greater solemnity. "Are you suggesting, then, that this fissure is being caused by...?"

Tereshkova waved a beefy hand. "It is too early to say for certain. But the vicious alien life-form known as The Coral certainly has such power, yes—we have only to look at the scrawl with which it defaced the lunar surface as proof. But if this fissure represents a new act of aggression by the rebels of the so-called InterDominion, it will _not_ find us so ill-prepared—or infested by treason—as we were during the last conflict. I can now announce that all conscript terms of duty have been extended indefinitely, and that the High Council is prepared to exercise extraordinary powers to ensure the safety of all loyal citizens. All civilians should..."

Arda snatched out and snapped the volume control to zero. "I've heard _enough_. They're looking for an excuse to declare martial law again, that's all, and this earthquake on the Moon is going to be it. They want total control of everyone and everything, and they'll make up any excuse to get it."

Her husband only nodded. But Maurice remembered something then, and he looked toward Ariadne, as she watched the silent video with a fixed stare of dread. He recalled, at that moment, what she had told him earlier that day. _It's coming from both below us and. from up _there_ somewhere, _she had said.

Their eyes met. And he shivered.

—

—

—

**Chapter Nine**

—

—

"Transponder failure on Line Seventeen," said the face in the lower-left window of Jobs' primary monitor. "We're re-routing the signal path through Semiramis station."

Job "Jobs" Stevens nodded and rearranged the windows to give the schematic of the routing table priority. "Roger that, Amashi. Any signs of sabotage?"

"No, sir. Just a bit of unusually high upper-atmosphere electrical activity. We're still getting the beacon bursts from Bird and Candy on the half-hour."

"Got it. Over and out." Jobs leaned backward in his chair, lifting his glasses to rub at both eyes.

Holland Novak stood just behind him in the impromptu command center now occupying Katsuhiro Morita's spacious New Tresor offices. "You need a break," he said.

"I can't. Not now. Not with..."

Holland lowered his voice; privacy was already difficult in the office suite, crowded as it now was with equipment and extra personnel. "Not with Tommy about to go charging into the lion's den?"

"That's it. That's it exactly. I just can't stop thinking that if I goof off even for a moment, I might be putting her in danger. Maybe even..." He turned around, to look up at his former commander. "And what about you? How can you stand seeing Yuki fly off on this covert operation with my brother-in-law and that crazy girl who used to be one of Dewey's playthings?"

"What makes you think I _can_ stand it? But Yuki does what she wants to; always has." He fished about in his pockets for a pink antacid tablet, unrolled it and popped it into his mouth. Then another. "Truth is, I did my damnedest to talk her out of it, but she wouldn't listen to reason. I've gotta lay off this stinking coffee. It's killing my stomach lately."

Jobs touched a keystroke combination, and the dozens of windows spread across the three monitors aligned themselves into cascading order. "It isn't the coffee, and you know it. I'm as worried as you are. Kaz is a good kid—maybe not so much of a kid any more—but he hasn't got any experience in this kind of thing. And that 'Lark' girl... I trust Viyuuden, but even _he_ can make mistakes." He yawned cavernously and stretched his full length. "Sooner or later I'll have to sleep. When Morita gets back, I'll ask him to have a sleeping bag brought in here."

Another window bloomed on the central monitor. The pale-haired technician framed in it had the distinct look of a man bearing bad news. "Mr. Stevens?"

"Stevens here. What's up?"

"This is Andrei Balenkov at the New Lands Astronomical Observatory. We just got this a couple of minutes ago, and Dr. Morita said I should pass it to you without delay."

"What's going—?"

"It's the Moon, Mr. Stevens. There's something happening in the _Mare Crisium_. Apparently the Federation media just started covering it. From one of their military spy satellites, I'd guess. We notified our own Ministry of Information, and they're scrambling to put together an announcement within the next few minutes. We just got the unfiltered data from the University's astronomy unit ourselves, and I thought you ought to know. I'm sending you a realtime transmission from one of our satellites, now."

Holland leaned closer over Jobs' shoulder as a new window appeared, filled with the dull blotch of an oval crater. A reference scale at the bottom of the image indicated that the crater had a mean diameter of 418 kilometers. From its south to north, an irregular but sharp-edged striation now appeared, like a trailing ribbon of black crepe.

"Holy crap," murmured Jobs. "Balenkov, what _is_ that thing? A shadow of something?"

"Actually, it's a crack. There appears to be some sort of major seismic event going on. But it's even _more_ unusual than that."

Dominic Sorel rose from his Security station and picked his way across the maze of heavy cables strewn over the floor. "There's something more interesting than a crack in the moon?"

"Yes, very much so," said Balenkov, and the window changed. "This image is from the Wide Orbit Astronomical Telescope, and the view is looking almost directly down _into_ the fissure. Let me raise the magnification..." In a series of jumps, the apparent viewpoint leaped downward until it seemed that the telescopic camera floated only a few kilometers above the lunar surface. Far down the throat of the night-black opening, a thin line of luminescence appeared, as if a river of radium ran at the bottom.

Holland swore. "Has anybody analyzed that light down there?"

"Oh, yes. According to our spectrographic analysis, it's mainly around the 5000-Angstrom range. Self-illuminating, so it's not just reflected sunlight. A pretty unique shade of blue-green."

"It's unique, all right," said Holland, straightening. "I've seen too much of it over the past ten years not to recognize it without any damn spectrographs. That stuff is—"

The doorway to the office flapped open, pushed by a powerful arm. Dr. Gregory Egan entered at a run, breathless, a small workout towel draped about his neck. "You are correct, Captain Holland. It is _trapar_. Though what it is doing in a canyon of a dead moon is, at this time, anyone's guess." He peeled off his sweat-soaked gray T-shirt and threw it in one corner with a sodden _splat_.

"Commander Sorel," called one of Dominic's assistants from the far side of the room. "Security channel Orange is getting unstable. You'd better have a look."

"Crap." He hurried back to the Security station and went into immediate low conversation with his subordinates.

Oblivious to the fact that he smelled much like a victorious race horse, Dr. Egan elbowed his way to Jobs' console and grabbed the nearest microphone. "This is Prime Minister Egan speaking. Has any anomalous electromagnetic activity been reported in connection with this discovery?"

"Yes, Minister. How did you know? Contact with our satellite-based telescopes has been getting erratic, which is why it took us so long to gather information. Ionization in our upper atmosphere has been rising steadily over the past eight hours or so, just the sort of thing you'd expect from sunspot activity. But there _is_ no significant sunspot activity at the moment." Balenkov paused politely. "Do you...have a theory, Doctor?"

"Perhaps. Thank you, Mr. Balenkov, please report any new developments at once." He turned back to Jobs and Holland. "Katsuhiro gave me this news himself, by personal communicator. I interrupted my daily ten-kilometer run to come here straightaway. We must now begin to..."

"Hold on, Dr. Egan!" Dominic jumped to his feet, waving both hands. "There's something on the Ministry news channel you should all see right away."

Even Egan himself seemed surprised as Jobs riffled through the windows of his monitors once more, bringing a public-video newsfeed to the top and expanding it to full screen.

"...is demanding full revelation from the InterDominion government concerning his claims. Senator Fuillión's office assured us nearly an hour ago that his press conference will begin at 1400 hours, and he's normally... Wait, there you see the steps of the Parliament Chambers, and Senator Fuillión is coming down now, right on time. Those are his aides and secretaries hurrying behind him. We'll listen to what he has to say."

Red-faced, clenched hands swinging at his sides, Senator André Fuillión faced the nearest audio/video sensor and shouted at it without preamble. "_My fellow citizens of the InterDominion_! I have conclusive evidence that our power-drunk and autocratic government is preparing _acts of war _against the Federation of Predigio Towers!"

One of the reporters in the little crowd gathering about Fuillión called out "What sort of acts of war, Senator?"

"_Installation of a secret military base on Earth's Moon_." He waited precisely long enough for the buzz of astonishment to rise before continuing: "The signs of deadly radiation experiments are now undeniable and clear! It is obvious that this administration has been conducting covert short-range space expeditions to create a military presence on the Moon—for the purpose of threatening acts of aggression against the Federation! Gregory Egan and his warmongering clique are no longer content to rule the InterDominion, they now want to dominate the entire _planet_! I am making this announcement public so that they do not attempt to have me conveniently 'disappear' in order to cover their tracks."

"Goddam paranoid maniac," Holland murmured.

Fuillión jammed one accusing finger into the video sensor's lens. "But I promise the people of the InterDominion this: _I shall not be silenced_! This subversion must not proceed unopposed, no matter what the cost! I shall not permit our new nation to be led into another terrible, bloody war with the Federation!"

"This 'radiation' you speak of, Senator," called out one of the clustered reporters on the Parliament steps. "How can you be so certain it's the work of the InterDominion?"

"Because—" and he leaned closer to the lens, filling the screen with his triumphant smirk "—analysis shows that its light has the _characteristics of trapar._ As all of us know well, the Federation has _never_ succeeded in harnessing trapar's power. But there are...those whose names are better left unspoken at this time...who can manipulate it with ease."

"Are you accusing—?" blurted the stunned reporter.

But it was too late. With a grand flourish, Fuillión spun away and gestured his entourage to follow as he ascended the Parliament stairs with the speed of a furtive spider. As the video pickup followed him, the announcer returned to the screen, plainly at a loss for words. "I...Senator Fuillión has just, has just made an accusation—no, an _announcement_—proclaiming that...that certain high persons in the InterDominion hierarchy—"

"That pig as much as said 'Eureka and Renton,'" said Dominic.

"—have established a military base on the Moon, for, for the purpose of intimidating the remaining States of the Federation. Such a shocking claim will, of course..."

"Oh, turn that thing off," said Holland. "That's all we can stomach for right now. What's he _up_ to? What can Fuillión possibly hope to gain by spreading a crock of BS like this all over the air? I'd like to..."

But Dr. Egan only nodded and smiled, as though he had not heard. "The Senator has grievously overplayed his hand. His goals are at last becoming clearer, I think."

"What? He's not making any sense at all! Look, Doc..."

"All in good time, Holland. Fuillión has gone as far as he dares for the moment; it is now up to us to plan our response. For the moment—" he turned his face in the direction of his right armpit with an expression of restrained distaste "—I shall retire to the employees' shower facilities, then make a change of clothing. Commander Sorel, please put your Security forces on full alert and call Katsuhiro Morita to this office. I shall not be gone long."

"Wait a minute, Doctor," called Jobs. "This is no time for being cryptic. You always see things before anyone else—how about letting _us_ in on the secret?"

"Eh?" On his way from the room, Egan plucked his wet T-shirt from the floor. "But surely, Mr. Stevens, you _already_ understand? How long has it been since you received the news of the activity on the Moon?"

"How long?" He checked the chronometer on his left-hand screen. "Approximately five minutes, I guess, no more than that. Why?"

Egan's smile became maddeningly feline. "This office is now temporarily the very apex of the pyramid of intelligence-gathering data for the InterDominion—yet we have ourselves only known of these events for scant minutes. How, then, could Senator Fuillión have learned so much of this matter in time to plan a press conference for this very moment, eh?" His running shoes squealed on the tile floor as he turned and pulled the door closed behind him.

—

—

—

**Chapter Ten**

—

—

"I'm hungry," said Phaedra again.

Max looked out across a row of weary tenements, toward the lowering sun beyond. "I know. You were hungry ten minutes ago. And ten minutes before that. And at least every _five_ minutes before _that_. I _told_ you to bring some food from the ship, didn't I?"

She sneered at him, an effect somewhat diluted by the dark sunglasses she wore over the deep Coralian lavender-pink of her eyes. "Nobody likes a know-it-all. Why'd we have to leave the damn rover behind, anyhow?"

"Because it was shot full of holes—which is what _we'll_ be if anybody notices that we're outsiders. So pull that headband down lower over that thing on your forehead, will you?"

"It's called a _neural node_. Or just a 'jewel,' if that's too much for you to remember." After first looking round the littered street, she tugged the fluffy white athletic headband down an extra half-inch. "Anyway, now that we're in this stinking town, what do we do about finding...you-know-who? Go around knocking on doors?"

He turned away, trying hard to appear casual and disinterested as an automobile chuffed by, the first one they'd seen in the past half-hour. "You're the one with the _neural node_; why don't _you_ tell _me_?"

"They're _that_ way, smart guy—out toward that end of this lousy town. East, I guess." On the opposite side of the street, a cluster of seven weary men carrying lunch buckets slouched by, glancing their way for a moment before lowering their eyes once more toward the pavement. "Hey, have you noticed how _drab_ everybody is around here? You and me kinda stand out, in these flashy duds."

"I've noticed, all right." He held out one sleeve of his red jacket. "And I should've known enough to have us change into something not so colorful. I've been away from the Federation so long that I almost forgot what it was like. _Everything's_ run-down and patched up. The Federation's like a city of dust, full of dusty, beaten people. Except for the elites at the top, naturally."

"Is that why you—?"

"Never mind, we can talk about it somewhere that's not so public, okay? Let's get going, while we still have some sunlight left. We'll have to be really careful not to get spotted, wandering around after dark with no Federation ID."

"Well, maybe if _you_ hadn't stopped in the woods for a _nap_, it wouldn't _be_ so late."

"I _told_ you—I was up all night flying, keeping awake with stim pills. And when _they_ wear off, it hits you like a hammer."

Phaedra sighed, looking up the long slope to the eastern end of the town. "Okay, okay, I guess so. Jeez, I never thought... I mean, I just thought we'd swoop in here and rescue those two, and then right away get out. I didn't realize, I guess, that this was gonna be some kind of _expedition_." She turned away, toward the doorway to an abandoned shopfront that might have been a fruit market in better times. "Guess I didn't really think this through too much. You probably think I'm kind of...dumb and childish, don't you?"

"You're not... You're doing okay, Phaedra. _Really_ okay." Understanding more of her self-doubts than he cared to admit even to himself, Max dug about in one of the deep pockets of his red jacket. "Nobody else could have done any better. Here."

"What?" Warily, she faced him again. "What're those?"

"Nutrition bars. I got'em from the survival kit in the airship. Maybe this's the time for us to each have one, before we go any further. Here, take one."

"Thanks!" She snatched it from his hand and began tearing at the wrapper, then hesitated and peeled back the plastifilm slowly and deliberately before taking a small bite. "Thanks."

"Sure. Never let anybody tell you I don't know how to treat a girl to a fancy dinner. Oh yeah, one other thing..." 

"Yeah?"

Max felt, rather than saw, the question behind her dark glasses. "You look pretty good as a blonde. Not that I didn't like the pink better, but the blonde's...nice."

"Oh. Yeah, sorry I put up such a stink when you dyed it. Guess I couldn't very well get away with pink hair here in the dusty ol' Federation, could I?" She took a quick peek at her reflection in one of the market's surviving shards of window glass. "Seems funny, though. First time I've ever looked like an _ordinary_ girl."

_There'll never be anything _ordinary_ about you, Phaedra_. "You're not..."

"What?"

"Never mind, let's get moving. I think the day shift is ending at that factory over there, and these streets are going to get crowded pretty soon. Best we start making tracks. We need to—" He broke off, at once alert.

"Stop _doing_ that! What's up? Something wrong?"

Too frightened to answer, he pushed her into the narrow space between two of the dilapidated buildings and wedged himself in after her. There, in the damp, mold-scented shadows, he waited, barely breathing.

"Something coming?" whispered Phaedra.

"Listen. You hear it now?"

Beneath the dull murmur of men coming off their shift, beneath the occasional clanking and banging from the distant factory, beneath even the wind, came the faintest buzz of high-pitched mechanical voices, angry and urgent. "Radio. Cops. Getting closer."

Her hand found his as they waited in stillness, hidden from the dying sunlight. The soft slither of tires on asphalt made its way to their street, reached its peak as the dull-green patrol car passed them unseeing and continued on, leaving the methane stench of its engine to hang in the air.

With the greatest caution, Max edged outward, peering in both directions. "It's okay," he said at last. "Okay, you can come out. That was a Secpo streetcrawler, all right. I'd know the sound of their radio chatter anyplace. I couldn't make much of it out, though."

Phaedra crept out onto the sidewalk. "_I _could. Something about 'dissidents' and 'hate group.' They're trying to sneak up on somebody. Sounded like Vodarek, I think, up in the east end of town."

"In the—?"

"You got it, Max. The east end. Where Ariadne and Maurice are."

Their eyes met. And they began walking as fast as they dared, uphill, racing the shadows to the east.

—

—

—

**Chapter Eleven**

—

—

Kazuya shifted from foot to foot, folding his arms keep from fidgeting. Tommy and Yuki stood by one wingtip of the dark airship, talking in low voices about things and people he didn't know. Lark stayed to one side, looking here and there about the dim little hangar in a mildly curious way, as if deciding which frozen vegetables to buy from the grocery store. But Kaz himself could only fume and worry.

The protective black bodysuits they'd all been given to wear only increased his anxiety, implying as they did something extremely covert and dangerous. _And if it's _that _dangerous, why aren't they sending somebody with up-to-date combat experience_? _Tommy and Yuki've been away from the military for years._ _I'm just an apprentice engineer-in-training at an aircraft plant_. _And Lark_... _I don't know_ what _the hell to make of_ her. _What made Viyuuden choose_ us _for this trip_? _And where_ is _Viyuuden, anyway_?

"Where's..." He stopped, cleared his dry throat and began again. "Where's Viyuuden? He said he'd meet us here at sixteen hundred, didn't he? What's taking him so long? I don't know about the rest of you, but_ I_ sure don't know how to fly this thing."

"None of us do," said Tommy. "He told me he was going somewhere to _get_ a pilot for us, so just take it easy, will you?"

Yuki stroked one of the bulbous black craft's dynamic foils in an admiring way. "There can't be many pilots qualified on a weird ship like this one. Something experimental, isn't it? You know anything about it, Kazuya?"

"No." He turned his face away. "I don't have a High Secret clearance. Not since..." Kaz trailed off, wishing he had stopped with a simple 'No.'

Tommy covered for him. "Since the accident, yeah. Quite a ship, though, isn't it? The _Moonlight_ was hot stuff when Holland stole it from the Federation, but this little job makes it look like yesterday's news."

"Military secrets are the most short-lived of all," Yuki said, unable to conceal the wistfulness in her eyes. "Since the old days when Ken-Goh designed the _Moonlight_, there's been the axial-flow slipstreamer, the compressive-trapar ramjet and a dozen other new developments. Some of'em even worked. Yesterday's news, for yesterday's pilots—which means me. We'll need somebody who knows this thing inside-out to get us near Ariadne and Maurice."

A door opened and closed at the rear of the hangar, and two sets of footsteps echoed through its flat concrete walls and domed ceiling. "That is why I've brought a pilot who _does_ know it inside-out," said Viyuuden, materializing out of the shadows with someone new at his side.

"Jimmy!" cried Yuki as she threw her arms around Viyuuden's companion. "It's been almost two years! Holland and I wondered where you'd got to all this time."

Though he seemed a tall and lanky boy, something in the confident way the newcomer held himself suggested to Kaz that his apparent youth might be at least partly a product of the Coralian Gift. His blonde hair hung all round in an uneven fringe that he tossed aside with swipes of one hand. "Sorry, Yuki, we _meant_ to come over, time after time. But it always seemed like either something big was going on at the Ministry or the Transport Service, or that Holland and Egan were sweating overtime keeping the InterDominion in one piece. We never all had a break at the same time." He smiled, showing a keyboard of perfect teeth. "And you're Tommy, naturally. Annette and I loved your singing at the National last month. I hear you and Jobs're married, now."

She shook his hand, and Kaz was amused to see her flustered, if only for an instant. "You're way out of touch, Jim. Our fourth anniversary was in February. How're you and Annette doing?"

"Couldn't be better. Well, maybe if she didn't have so many deadlines, and I didn't have so many continental trial flights, that is. And you'd be...?"

He held out his hand and Kaz stood speechless, recognizing him at last. "'Continental flights...? You're _Director Emerson_? Of the Transport Service? Uh, Kazuya Aruno, sir, Engineer Trainee Fourth Level, Sestroyesk Aircraft Plant." Kaz thrust his own hand forward, wondering if he should bow or salute.

"Sure. We've had our eyes on you this past couple of years. Welcome aboard, Kazuya."

Before Kaz could ask him just _who_ had their eyes on him and for what reasons, Emerson had already moved on to Lark, who faced him with placid indifference. "Hello," she said.

"Hi. I'm James Emerson, Assistant Director of the R&D wing of the InterDominion Transport Service. I'm a pilot, too, in case you were worried."

"No, I wasn't worried. My name is Lark," she added, as though that alone would answer any possible questions.

"So I hear. Is there any—?"

Viyuuden very conspicuously checked his chronometer. "It's time we boarded, Mr. Emerson. Please begin your preflight check. Will the rest of you please enter? The boarding hatch is at the rear. Accommodations are spartan, but we expect this will not be a lengthy trip."

"We do?" Kaz bristled at the priest's peremptory manner. "Why? The Federation's a long way off. Do you know something we don't?"

"Very likely. And now—Mr. Emerson, would you be kind enough to lead the way?"

—

—

—

**Chapter Twelve**

—

—

"There," said Arda, tugging Maurice's altered military jacket into place around his shoulders. "That should do the trick, as long as no one gets too near to you."

He shrugged and wriggled at the dense cloth—almost canvas—shifting his arms and wings beneath its generously cut back. Even folded into their smallest volume, the wings felt clumsy and awkward, like a pair of oars strapped to his spine. But Ariadne had made no word of complaint as Arda fitted her own jacket, so he held his tongue. "Yeah, thanks. Thanks for the tailoring job. Thanks for dinner and everything, too." _If you can call boiled turnips and carrots a dinner_.

_I'm sure that's all these people get to eat_, Ariadne flashed back to him. _And they shared it with us._

His face warmed with shame. _I never thought of that._ _I guess you're right_. "It's starting to get dark out, now. Raining a little, too. We better leave soon."

"I wish we could do more to help you in whatever it is you've come to do." Gabriel tossed up both hands in a gesture of helplessness. "We trust to the Will of Vodarek to guide you, of course, but...you two are in great danger. And the further you go into the Federation, the greater the danger will be."

Ariadne peeked from beneath a window blind, out into the wet night. "It's dangerous for us right _here_. And the longer we stay, the more we'll be spreading that danger to _you_. Thank you so much for your kindness, but—"

Again, the telephone buzzed for attention. Dread showed on Arda's face as she picked it from its cradle. "Hello? Oh, Merdine, it's you... What? This way? Oh, _no_. Yes, we will, and thanks."

She dropped the handset, letting it fall to the length of its cord, where it bobbed and swung in mid-air. Everyone in the room looked to her. "That was Merdine Cardin. She says there's a whole squad of Secpos moving in. It looks like a sweep. All the Vodarek are evacuating."

#

Max Condor and Phaedra pressed themselves to a brick wall, slimy with misty rain. "What's going on?" she whispered, peering over her water-spattered sunglasses.

"Too dark to tell. There's a hell of a lot of cars blocking the street up ahead, full of guys in uniforms. We were right—the Secpos are all stirred up over something. Looks like some kind of stakeout."

"Can't you just go up to one of them and ask?"

He laughed without humor, cold as the increasing rain. "This isn't the Heart of the World any more, Candy. The Secpos'd haul me in just for 'interfering with police business.' Or for 'acting suspicious.' Or just because they felt like it. People who live in the Federation learn fast to stay away from anybody with authority."

"I've never lived in the Federation." She shook her head, staring at the slick and shiny sidewalk. "I've never lived _anyplace_ but home."

Before Max could reply, two Secpos dragged a man, kicking, thrashing and shouting, from a tumbledown shack not fifty meters away. "You _bastards_!" he railed. "What's this all about? You can't just come in here and—" The butt of a rifle silenced him as two more troopers hauled a weeping woman, presumably the man's wife, from the same building. Both of them were thrown like sacks of grain into a lorry with "Internal Security Police" stenciled on its sides.

Max pushed Phaedra into the shadows of a long-abandoned storefront. "Looks like they're going from house to house, searching for something. Good thing that most of the streetlights are out."

"How come they're out?"

"_Nothing's_ maintained in the Federation. Everything's left to wear out till the local commune secretary complains to the District Overseers' Council. Then things _might_ get done in a year or two or three, if the Council doesn't pocket the funds first." He risked another look beyond the storefront. "You still sure this is where Maurice and Ariadne are?"

"Yeah. Up the hill a little further, someplace. Not far. I can feel'em now, clear as day. I can't see too far up that street, but I feel both of them. How're we gonna get to them with all those cops in the way?"

"Just have to go around them, I guess." He took her by one hand and led her through the gap between the abandoned shop and the next building, into a narrow, overgrown alley. The tall weeds brushed their faces with clammy fingers but they crept on, tripping over invisible rubbish till the alley opened onto an unpaved but well-used path. The only light came from the dull glow of rear windows from several of the shacks along the way, but they crept on, crouched low, picking their way along.

One of the back doors burst open and a man and woman charged out into the night, only to be quietly captured at gunpoint and beaten into unconsciousness by three Secpo troopers who materialized from a patch of high brush. Motionless, Max waited for the thugs to drag their prey out to the street, then he put one hand to Phaedra's shoulder. "_Now_," he whispered. "There'll be more of them any minute.."

"Right." Phaedra and Max hurried as fast as they dared up the rocky path, listening all the while to the shouted orders and screams of outrage from the next street over. Now and then they came to a stop as frantic scuffling from the gloom on one side or the other marked the escapes of other refugees from the patrollers. But each time they paused only for seconds before moving on up the hill.

A gunshot blasted in the night, followed by a great deal of shouting. Max went cold. "Uh-oh, the trapar's hit the fan. They've been trying to keep things quiet up till now, but somebody's got trigger-happy. _Hurry_."

"No!" She tugged at his arm, holding him back.

"What? Why the hell not? We've got to—"

"No, Max! _This_ is the one. _That_ place right there. _That's_ where they are, Ariadne and Maurice. _That_ one."

#

Gabriel killed the living-room light and swept the thin beam of a pocket flashlight around them. "Arda, get our getaway bags out of the closet. You two, take the sack of food and run, out the back way."

"Wait a minute." Maurice took Ariadne's hand, determined not to show the fear he so strongly felt. "Won't they be _waiting_ out there for us?"

"It depends. If they're looking specifically for _you_, then probably, yes. But if this is just a roundup to capture and interrogate any suspected Vodarek, then they don't yet know about you, and you might have a chance to slip through if you keep in hiding."

"And what about _you_?" said Ariadne.

"Don't worry about us—we'll seek the way of Vodarek, as always. But you are the Blessed Ones, and whatever your plans are, they can only be in harmony with the Will. You _must_ carry them through." His wife brought out a pair of lumpy packs, presumably loaded with survival supplies, and they helped each other strap them to their backs. "Keep low and run out that back door. If you keep on going up this hill, you'll come to a dirt road that parallels the railroad tracks. The freights run every half-hour, and they slow down for the curve that goes around the foundry. You should be able to find an open goods wagon and jump in."

Maurice's confusion turned to anger. "Jump in? And _then_ what? Where do the trains _go?_"

"Many different places." Arda tugged at the fasteners of her pack. "But at least you'll be away from _here_. It's been a wonderful blessing to meet you and to be of some small help in the unfolding of the Will of Vodarek. Now, go."

"But you'll—"

The heavy tramp of military boots rumbled down the flat's long, dark entrance hallway. Gabriel bent to them and pushed them bodily away. "_Go!_"

Ariadne pulled Maurice's arm and flung the door open onto the rain and blackness beyond. Before he could protest, they were outside, slipping on a mossy brick walkway through the high weeds of what might once have been a tiny back yard. His Coralian eyes adjusted at once, but still he could see little beyond the overgrown shrubbery that rose here and there. Through the wind-driven rain he heard feet sliding and splashing in the muddy grass, and from the main street far behind them, the arrogant shouts of Federation troopers, threatening, intimidating, belittling, demanding. Ariadne pulled him again, more insistently, and he ran along with her, trusting to her instinct.

He hit something—some_one_—hard, and went down, still holding to Ariadne's hand. "It's _them_!" someone said, and a pair of strong arms lifted him from the muddy earth. Maurice squinted into the gloom. "Max? Max Condor? And _Phaedra_? What's with that blonde hair? What the hell are—?"

Max cut him off. "We'll tell you all about it later. Right now, this place is crawling with Secpos. Come on."

"No!" said Ariadne. "Not that way. Up this hill, up the path, there are railroad tracks. And there's a road beside them. We've got to go _that_ way."

Max and Phaedra looked to each other, and, to Maurice's amazement, seemed to come to an immediate agreement.

"Okay," she said. "Whatever you say. But let's _go_, okay?"

The four of them ran, slid, waddled, up the slope. The mud smelled of garbage and rotting leaves and the night around them became a jungle of shouts, angry and terrified. From the unseen street came three shots, then another one somewhere behind them. Maurice risked looking back, only to see the home of Gabriel and Arda shiver for an instant, then erupt in flames that spurted from the rear windows, blasting out jagged holes in the roof. He shouted in horror, before Max caught him about the shoulders. "_Move_ it, kid!" he growled.

_Ariadne! That was__—_

_Yes, I know it. I'll make them all pay for this. Keep running, Maurice!_

Maurice kept running, but burned inside, unable to keep the faces of Arda and Gabriel from his mind. All at once, Max slithered to a stop as a Secpo patroller appeared from the gloom before them, holding a short rifle at waist level. "Far enough," the trooper shouted over the rain. "You will surrender to our lawful authority. You will put your hands—"

Max leaped forward, grabbing the astonished trooper by the lapels of his military overcoat, then rolling backward. The Secpo sailed overhead on Max's outstretched legs, landing hard in the scrub vegetation to the side of the path. Before he could come to his feet again, Max was on him with the rifle, smashing its butt into his face and head until he lay still.

"Did you...kill him?" asked Phaedra, looking sicker than Maurice had ever seen her.

"No, just knocked him cold." He wiped sweat and rain from his face with one sleeve, and Maurice noticed that his free hand trembled. "What with you three being here spreading the Coralian Gift and all, he'll probably be okay in a couple of hours... Help me get this coat off of him."

"Right."

Maurice and Ariadne watched, more confused than ever, as the two of them stripped the overcoat from the bleeding trooper while Max peeled off his own gaudy red flight jacket. Then he and Phaedra together pushed the unconscious man's arms into it while Max donned the rain-soaked coat and hat, then took the rifle and a pouch of ammunition. "Okay," he said finally. "That'll give his friends something to think about. Now we can keep on moving. Let's roll."

As the shots and explosions continued behind them, they came, panting and sweating in spite of the chill, to the top of the long rise. As if to confirm that they were near their goal, a heavy freight train came roaring out of the storm, its pantographs sparking against the overhead power line. Thankful for the deafening racket that would hopefully cover the last steps of their escape, Maurice followed the others along the tracks till they came to the gravel road Gabriel had described.

"Duck!" shouted Max, and they ducked.

Maurice knelt in the sharp, muddy gravel to look forward. Two hulking dark lorries with the Secpo shield logo outlined on their doors stood parked less than fifteen meters ahead. Their headlights pointed forward, making long yellow cones in the falling rain, and a steady mist of methane exhaust puffed from the tailpipes.

"I don't think that there's anyone in them," said Ariadne when the train had passed at last.

Max nodded. "I think you're right. Wait here till I find out for sure."

"What the hell're you two..." said Maurice under his breath as Max crept off into the trackside shadows.

Phaedra turned on him, as if daring him to say more. "We're here to save your butts, in case you hadn't noticed. Max used to be Federation military, so he knows what he's doing, all right."

"We were doin' all right _before_ you and him got here." It sounded lame and insincere, and he knew it.

Before she could argue, Max returned, his footsteps splashing. "Looks like we got lucky; there's nobody home. They must all be off down below, raising hell. Come on, we'll take the far truck. It'll be a tight squeeze, but we can all get in the cab together."

More cautiously now, they groped their way ahead, expecting to be challenged at any second. "Ow!" shouted Phaedra as she stumbled over something in the dark.

"What is is?" asked Ariadne.

"Some kinda... It's copper wire, big loops of it, piled on the ground on plastic sheets, all over the damn place."

Max turned to grope around them. "Overhead power cable, for the railroad. The track crews must be doing some replacements. Rugged stuff; it has to carry eleven thousand volts. Come on, now, just a few more meters. Everybody watch your step."

Last in line, Maurice edged around the obstacles till they reached the first vehicle, only to find its dual rear tires straddling one badly skewed coil. "Watch it," he said. "There's a coil sticking out from underneath this lorry. Don't anybody get your foot caught."

"Yeah." Max paused only briefly. "The Secpos must've been in a hell of a hurry. How'd they know you were here?"

"We're not sure they _do_ know," Ariadne told him. "This might be just a raid on the Vodarek in town." She risked a look back, toward the rising tower of fire in the foggy air. "The Vodarek were good to us. And now look what's happening to them."

"Don't kid yourself, it's not just the Vodarek. Come on now, let's all pile into the next truck."

Max had spoken no less than the truth—it _was_ a tight squeeze in the stark and narrow military cab. But with Phaedra pressed against Max, then Ariadne on Maurice's lap, they crowded themselves in. Max released the parking brake with a grinding of pulleys and cables, raised the fluorine feed to maximum, then engaged the gear lever. The massive lorry lurched forward a few meters, then spun its drive wheels in the mud. "Crap," said Max.

"Anything we can do?" Maurice asked him.

"No. Just gimme a minute to rock us out, and we'll be okay." Cursing beneath his breath, he worked the gear lever back and forth between reverse and low, and each time they rose a little higher out of the muddy ruts beneath the tires.

Two shots exploded behind them and Maurice's heart sank. "Somebody's spotted us."

"No kidding! We're almost out..." But the lorry still rocked back and forth, the crunching of Max's gearshifts punctuated by the maddening _swick-swick_ of the wipers.

Another shot, and someone shouted "Stop! Internal Security Police! This is an official command!" A third shot whizzed by, near enough to hear.

Ariadne squirmed to one side, kicked at the door, and before Maurice could stop her, she jumped out into the storm. "_Ariadne_!"

"What the _hell_?" cried Max. "Get her back in—"

"No, I know what she's up to! Keep on trying to get out!" Maurice followed her, his heart throbbing as he ran through the darkness, already seeing in his mind where she was going. In seconds he found her, crouched over the loose coil of high-voltage wire. "Ariadne! I _know_ what you're gonna try. _Don't_, please!"

"I know I can do this, Maurice. I'm sure of it, now." She stood, and shrugged off her coat and shirt, revealing her wings, sparkling with raindrops. "Take these—I'll need them when I get back."

"You mean _if_ you get back! Remember how you used to tell me not to go charging off on my own to do stuff? Ariadne, _don't_. You could get _killed_ doing this!"

Fresh gunfire swept past the truck, whose wheels still whined, nearly out of the mud now. In the dim light from a trackside signal, her eyes met his. "I've already _been_ killed, Maurice. Remember?"

She leaped into the black air, her wings coming alight with a blaze of trapar as she lifted the wire behind her, unwinding it out from its coil, soaring higher and higher on shining trapar flames.

More shots came, louder now. Maurice swore and did the only thing left for him to do. He ran back toward the cab of the rocking lorry, reached inside and grabbed the gun Max had taken from the unconscious trooper. _Regular Federation model M44 carbine, like the Guardians showed me back home_. _Kind of crudely made, but heavy and rugged and it's loaded with big-caliber shells_. Faces began to appear from the downpour behind them. Maurice knelt near the front wheels and fired. The short gun's powerful recoil rolled him to the ground; he picked himself up and wrapped Ariadne's discarded clothing around his shoulder, taking aim again as best he could.

Someone screamed. More shots, and Maurice let off another return round, braced for the kick this time. From the corner of his eye he could see Ariadne's trapar trail, climbing up and over the tracks. _You're not gonna get a chance to aim at _her, _you slimebags_. He fired once again, and beside him, he heard the lorry lift free of the muddy ditch as Ariadne swooped down and toward them.

She crashed into the door and her flame went out; Maurice rushed to gather her in his arms and fire off one last shot at their pursuers as he pulled open the door, threw her inside and jumped in behind her. "Okay, let's go!" he shouted, and Max flattened the accelerator. The rear tires bit and they lurched forward over the rough ground.

Max peered out through the misty windshield, swabbing a clear spot on the glass without looking their way. "It's gonna be a rough ride. Those troopers back there are gonna get in the other truck, and..."

"No, they won't." Ariadne shook her head, took her shirt back from Maurice and struggled to get into it as the truck bounced and jolted. "Just get us as far away from them as possible. _Hurry_, please"

"No argument. But we..."

The night came alive with silent fury that cast their world in a brilliant actinic glare. Screams ripped the air, many of them, cut off as soon as they began. Maurice looked into the passenger-side mirror, watching as an enormous electrical arc, its center too brilliant to bear, engulfed the second lorry. Burning human figures flailed and danced around it before they crumpled, still twitching, to the ground. Maurice turned away, sickened, blinking the ghastly afterimages from his eyes. "The wire," he said in a voice gone hoarse. "You took it up and draped it over the railroad power line. And when they started up the other truck and rolled over that coil..."

"It...grounded," said Max, though Maurice thought he sounded far less bluff and hearty this time. Phaedra only stared, saying nothing, eyes round.

The methane tanks of the burning lorry ruptured, sending a column of flame hundreds of meters into the sky before it rolled into a fiery mushroom against the rain. And as they roared away from the town of LaMarche, Maurice had eyes only for Ariadne, her faint smile cool, calculating...and satisfied.

—

—

—

**Chapter Thirteen**

—

—

Holland sat slumped in his chair, his dress jacket draped over the backrest, his collar unbuttoned, staring at the cable-strewn floor. Low voices and a constant soft rattle of electronic clicks and beeps filled the improvised command center like insects on a summer night. "Jobs?" he said at last.

Jobs lifted one hand, palm outward, then returned to typing as he stared with his normal burning intensity at the central of the three screens on his desk. A moment later, he hit the ENTER key, and turned to Holland, his face tight and worn. "Yeah?"

"I've been wondering: how do you _take_ it? About Tommy, I mean. How do you stand her being off on some mysterious mission with Viyuuden, charging into the Federation?"

"Oh, that." He softened at once. "About the same way you do, I suppose. I can barely _take_ it at all."

Holland grunted. "What, you too? It worries _me_ every goddam minute. All I can think of is her being in that nest of maniacs by herself. I went back to the Temple for a couple of hours to check on Junior, and the whole time all I could think of was what it would be like for _him_, if... If Yuki..."

"You don't have to say any more; I understand." Jobs rubbed at his reddened eyes, which, Holland could now see, floated over ugly, dark, puffy patches bulging beneath. "It burns at _me_ every minute. I can't eat. And I _won't_ sleep, in case I might be sleeping when... Well, when she needs me. The only thing that can keep my mind off of it is work. And so I sit here, burying myself in my systems, letting it all keep me too occupied to think." He sighed and rubbed his eyes again, to no great effect. "And it doesn't work. I wish she hadn't gone."

Holland looked away as Jobs rubbed at his eyes again. _That_ sort of thing could become contagious. "So do I. You know, maybe... I've been working my butt off for five years, helping His Lordship The Almighty Egan to put this InterDominion of ours together. I can't say I regret it, but it's taken a big chunk of my time. Time that I could've been spending with my own wife and kid. I wonder, now, if maybe she thought _I_ was getting all the attention, while she hung around and raised the little guy."

"That's quite an achievement itself, you know," said Jobs. "Raising a child."

"Yeah, I do know. But Yuki and me... We were the Pirate King and Queen for more than two years, in the old days, piloting the _Moonlight,_ shafting the Federation—when we weren't fighting with each other, that is—and being the avenging daredevil heroes of the skies. I wonder, now, if maybe...she needs to _prove_ to herself one more time that she can still really _do_ it, by herself."

Dominic approached them from his workstation across the room. "That's quite a speech. I've never heard you so thoughtful before."

"Oh, yeah." Holland made a hollow laugh and straightened himself in the chair. "I've been around Viyuuden too much, I guess. All that 'Will of Vodarek' stuff starts to make you get all meditative at the damnedest times."

"Anemone's been just the opposite, you know. She's eaten up with guilt because she _didn't_ go with them."

Jobs glanced at his screen for a moment, then nodded. "I heard about that. She has a lot of old grudges against that peculiar Lark girl that Viyuuden insisted on bringing. It's not hard to understand, all things considered."

"No, it's not. But once she thought it over, she began to see that Lark isn't so very different from herself; in the way she was used and brainwashed by the Federation and by—"

Holland completed the sentence. "By _Dewey. _You can go ahead and say it."

"Well, anyway, Anemone feels that with Phaedra out there somewhere, she's letting our daughter down." The Coralian node on his forehead flickered for an instant. "I can't seem to get her out of her depression."

Jobs scratched at the back of his head. "It's a hard thing, to think of your wife...in pain."

Holland's stomach contracted. "Amen to that. And, you know..."

"Uh-oh, wait a minute." Snapping to instant attention, Jobs clicked at something on one of his monitors. "You two had better have a look at this. I'm sure Dr. Egan will be here any minute, wanting to know all about it."

The two of them gathered behind him, watching as he brought one window to the center, then expanded it to full screen. The image showed a gaudy round crater, surrounded by brilliant white rays of lunar ejecta. "What is it?" asked Dominic. "That's on the Moon, isn't it? It's not the _Mare Crisium_ again?"

"No, that's Tycho crater, almost at the other end entirely. But see there in the center? That dark hole? According to our astronomical database, that should be a little impact peak that's been there for probably millions of years. Our image-comparison software spotted the change just a few minutes ago."

"Any trapar at the bottom?" said Holland.

"Nothing from the angle of the satellites that've been trained on it so far. But look at this data." Another window jumped into view, showing a bar graph creeping steadily upward. "That represents ionization levels, and they're rising, all over the moon. Which is pretty interesting, considering that the moon has no atmosphere to speak of. Your instincts are probably right, though—that's got to be another trapar vent developing down there. And now that _we've_ seen it, so will the Federation."

One of Dominic's assistants across the room stood and waved urgently. "Commander Sorel!"

"Yes?" Wearily, he looked up.

"Communications are getting even more erratic all over, sir. Seems like sunspot activity, but there's—"

"I know: no solar wind. All right, I'm coming."

At that moment, Dr. Katsuhiro Morita entered and looked to each of them before coming to a stop with both hands behind his back. All small talk ceased, and the atmosphere grew electric with expectation. _This'll be trouble_, thought Holland.

"Ladies and gentlemen. There has been a new development. Commander Sorel, please stand by for information from the IPF Fleet. Mr. Stevens, I recommend that you put your decryption team on alert for an imminent increase in incoming messages. And Holland...please come with me."

"Uh-huh. Where's Egan?"

Morita's chiseled face revealed nothing. "The Prime Minister is in conference at the moment. He needs you to assist in putting together a briefing for the Senate Security Committee, within the hour."

"Within the _hour?_ What the hell? It's the middle of the night. What's going on?"

"It remains to be seen. You see...the Fleet has just reported that the Federation military forces are mobilizing."

—

—

—

**Chapter Fourteen**

—

—

Bral Gartle, the fueling-station operator, stood from his workbench and fiddled with the radio's tuning slider, trying to get the mid-morning news from the State broadcasting network. Though the radio was near-new, the slider wouldn't stay set on its location, but kept drifting off to one side or another, into the bands of static generated by Federation jamming stations. Each time it happened, Gartle knew a twinge of fear that some suspicious Secpo—or even a military inspector—might overhear and wonder why he was trying to access forbidden transmissions from the bloodthirsty rebels of the InterDominion.

At last, he gave the slider the most delicate of nudges, and the voice of the newsreader boomed out, clear and authoritative:

"_...concerning the general callup of all Federation military forces. The High Council has not yet committed itself to any military action, says Council leader Armand Cadenza. Rather, the Council Leader, tells us, the Federation is simply preparing for any hostile InterDominion strikes from its bases on Earth's Moon. In a press release issued less than twenty minutes past, the Council declares that if the criminal rebel government of the InterDominion makes any hostile moves, the Federation is well prepared to rain such retribution upon them as they cannot imagine._"

Gartle shivered in the morning chill, and tugged his mechanic's coveralls higher over his chest. The _last_ war had been a blood-soaked nightmare that left the impoverished Federation with only five remaining provinces and splintered the military so badly that three years of trials, purges and executions had been required to ensure its loyalty. What _another_ war might bring, he had no desire to speculate.

The newsreader shifted to a jaunty, lighthearted tone. "_In other news, it seems that some loyal citizens have been suffering from 'war nerves' over the latest InterDominion acts of aggression. From the town of LaMarche have come reports of unidentified flying objects, causing panic. Your Federation military was sent to investigate at once, and found nothing but a nest of Vodarek hatemongers attempting sabotage of the State Railway lines. Further to the south, in the province of Astrisia, several farm communities have been aroused by rumors that—are you ready for this?—their animals have been _talking _to them! For this one, though, no military investigation is planned_. _Well, then...perhaps a_ veterinary_ investigation might do the job, eh?" _He paused, to let the full impact of his sardonic wit seep in._ "This has been the ten o'clock morning news headlines. Next up, the weather forecast for Rodomine Province_."

"_All pull together_," sang the cheerful voices of a mixed choir, "that's _the way! With our gathered strength, we'll find a_ better _day!_" As they continued to hum in the background, the soothing baritone of an announcer formed a voice-over: "_Yes, when we all join together as one, there's nothing to fear._ _So forget all your differences, citizens, and remember that_... Unity Is Our Might!"

The familiar chorus faded in once more, continuing the jingle, and Gartle reached out to lower the volume. In his haste, he jarred the cabinet with one wrist, and the tuning slide dislodged once more, echoing its rasp and crackle of jamming static from the workshop's tile walls. "Damn," he muttered.

As he coaxed the tuning strip once again, Gartle became all at once aware of another person near him, slightly behind and to one side. He turned, horrified, to see there a tall, stern blond military man in the long field coat and duty cap of a young Landestrooper Sergeant-Major.

"_Augh_!" he shouted, then strained to compose himself. He swatted at the radio's power switch, stammering into the sudden silence. "I'm...er... Damned radio, sir. Won't stay tuned for proper. Keeps drifting off into forbidden...you know, places where it hadn't ought not. Didn't see you there, sir, didn't at all. How might I be of service to you?"

"My vehicle," the Sergeant-Major said with an expressionless face. "It's out in front. It requires fuel. You have military requisition forms here, I presume?"

"Yes! Oh, yes, sir! Many as you'd like! I'll get out there right quick and give you your..."

The officer raised one hand. "Wait."

"Yes, sir?" Gartle came to an instantaneous stop, nearly falling over in the process.

"It's the radio."

"Oh. Oh, yes, of course, the _radio_." Gartle stared at the device as if only now discovering it. "If it's about the jamming bands, sir, I wasn't for to..."

"No, I meant the broadcast. Did I just hear something about a general mobilization?"

"That you did, sir, that you did! I was attending it that close, sir, that I didn't hear you come in. There's been a general callup, they say. To resist any tricks that InterDominion rabble might try, from those strange military bases on the Moon." Seeing the Sergeant-Major's look of vague concern, Gartle risked the impertinence of a question. "You've not heard about it, sir?"

"I'm returning from assignment, and haven't had any new orders yet. It was to the southwest, where they had that...UFO scare. All the action was over by the time I got there." He shook his head regretfully. "Fluorine injectors started acting up, and I couldn't make much speed. It's imperative that I get this vehicle back to base as soon as possible. Better...hurry about filling the tanks."

"Right you are, sir." Gartle nodded and half-ran to the military heavy lorry parked beside the methane nozzles, heaving a sigh of blessed relief to have gotten off so lightly.

#

Max signed the fuel requisition form with a splashy flourish that left the signature illegible, then handed it back to the station attendant, who took it with many an obsequious bow before hurrying back to his workshop.

"Did he suspect you?" came Phaedra's voice from the canvas-shrouded cargo compartment behind the driver's seat.

"He didn't even _see_ me." Max started the engine and pulled them back out onto the nearly-deserted road. "All he saw was the uniform." He checked both side mirrors to make certain no other vehicles were close enough to see into the driver's seat. "All right, you can come up, now. But Maurice and Ariadne, you two've got to stay hidden back there until we can find some better way to keep you from standing out so much."

"All right," said Ariadne, her voice muffled by the wooden crates behind which they sat concealed.

Phaedra settled herself into the passenger side of the cab. "I didn't really get it last night, but that was pretty good thinking, taking that coat and hat from that soldier back in town."

"Thanks. But if that guy at the fueling station had ever looked down at my boots, he'd've seen they weren't military issue and things might've gotten a lot stickier."

Phaedra stared at a huge billboard with an illustration of a mixed group of Federation laborers, office workers and military personnel, all standing with fists upraised in a defiant way. In the foreground, a brawny steelworker smiled confidently, one muscular arm lifted. The caption read _UNITY is our POWER!_

"Not much traffic today, is there?" she said, peering over the tops of her dark glasses.

"That's our first lucky break. No one's paying a single military transport much attention because there's a general mobilization on. I heard it on the radio back there. The Federation's issued a general callup... It's pretty strange, though. Something about being threatened by InterDominion bases on the moon. Do you know anything about that?"

"_Me_? Who the hell d'you think ever tells _me_ anything? You think Dad discusses his Security stuff with _me_?" She craned her head back over one shoulder, toward the cargo compartment behind. "Hey! Ariadne! You too, loverboy! You ever hear anything about InterDominion bases on the moon?"

Ariadne's lavender eyes appeared just over the ledge to the front seat. "No, of course not. We don't have any bases on the Moon. No one does. Viyuuden says mankind never returned to space at all after the Great Exodus. He thinks the Exodus was a 'mass trauma' of some kind, affecting all humanity, turning us inward and away from the stars."

"Whatever's going on," said Maurice from farther back, "the Federation's just using it for an excuse to threaten the InterDominion."

Max heaved the heavy lorry around a tight curve. "Why would they need an excuse, though? They consider the InterDominion a bunch of dangerous rebels. It's no secret they hate us. Anyway, the Federation's never really recovered from the Secession. With the trapar barrier around, I don't think they'd stand much of a chance if they _did_ attack us." He pulled to the side of the road, then up a short rocky embankment to a stand of trees, where he parked and got down without shutting off the engine. "Have you got our phase radio with you? I think it's about time we asked the Nest a couple of questions."

Phaedra dug about beneath the seat before handing the device down to him. He switched it on, made a few adjustments to the controls, then shook his head. "No good. I can't even get a carrier wave; some kind of interference. Looks like our last two burst transmissions didn't get through, either."

"Federation jammers?" she suggested. "They do that, I hear."

"Yeah, they do. But that's for low-band commercial broadcasting; they don't affect military communicators like this one. I've heard of sunspots screwing up phased-carrier transmissions, though." Max looked up through the leaves, wishing more than anything that they could stop right here and take it easy for a long while. Then a silvery sparkle glimmered beyond the trees, high in the morning sky. "Deeplanes," he said.

"What?"

Max pointed upward. "That's an entire deeplane squadron up there. Headed...let's see, due west. I don't like the looks of it. Something's going on, and we don't know what it is. We'd better get rolling before someone spots us. By the way, exactly where _are_ we going?"

Phaedra pointed a thumb behind her. "The Princess still says Pilgrim Island."

"You...still seriously think they're trying to get to that Chamb...?"

Softly, she touched his lips, silencing him. "Shh. Just in case I'm wrong, let's not encourage their stupid ideas, okay?"

"Right." Climbing back up to the cab, Max brought them down the rough ground with a great deal of stomach-churning bumping before they came to the main road once again. "What is it you don't like about her?" he said softly, just above the roar of the engine and the heavy tires. "Ariadne, I mean?"

Phaedra looked around her, then edged nearer to him, rising up to whisper in his ear. "She's starting to scare the hell out of me."

Their eyes met, and Max nodded agreement. The road ahead was getting longer every minute.

—

—

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**Chapter Fifteen**

—

—

Kaz Aruno fidgeted in his seat, squirming against the resistance of his seat belt and wishing strongly that the designers of this very peculiar ship had included windows. "This's no place for somebody who's claustrophobic," he complained.

At his side, Lark turned his way, showing polite interest. "Mr. Emerson _said_ it's a prototype for a cargo craft. Logically, a cargo ship carries no passengers, and needs no windows to weaken the structure of the fuselage." Even in the sinister glow of the dim red LED cabin lights, Kaz could appreciate the way her tawny hair draped itself elegantly over one ear.

"So why are we in an experimental cargo ship at all?" Yuki wriggled next to Tommy across the aisle, showing every sign of being as uncomfortable as Kaz himself. "Hey, Viyuuden—we're airborne now, right? How about answering a few questions now? Such as where we're going and why this flying cave is how we're getting there."

Viyuuden, in the co-pilot's seat, murmured a few words to James Emerson at the controls, then removed his headphones and turned back toward the passenger area. "I appreciate your cooperation thus far, Mrs. Novak. And now that we are off the ground and preparing for ballistic flight—"

"_Ballistic_? What the hell?"

"—there is no need to try your patience any further. We are, of course, going to enter Federation airspace and locate the First-Born and her Chosen partner. It is...not clear to me just what their intentions might be, but whatever they are, they can only be part of the unfolding of Vodarek's Will. After giving them all possible aid, we will return them to safety." He held up one hand. "Please do not ask yet what form that aid may take. Until we locate Maurice and Ariadne, we must fabricate our plans as events unfold. That's why I chose each of you, for you all have specialized skills and knowledge that can be applied to the possible obstacles we will encounter. And...I personally know and trust each of you." Kaz thought that his gaze lingered briefly on Lark, but in the dull shadows, it was impossible to be sure.

"What about Phaedra?" said Tommy. "And that pilot she went off with? Aren't _they_ supposed to be rescuing Ariadne and Maurice?"

"They intend to, yes. But they're amateurs; neither of them have any experience in such an operation." He seemed to hesitated, as if in some doubt. "I can't be certain what their part in the unfolding of the Will might be. And worse...I can now speak openly what few know: all contact with them has been lost for at least six hours."

Kaz understood that Yuki and his sister, both of whom knew Phaedra and her parents well, were taking the news hard, but he kept his own fears to himself. _That Max guy is a Transport Service pilot, just like I've been_. _Was_. _And Phaedra Solel's a Coralian girl._ _If_ they _can't make it, what can_ I _do_? "So why're we going in this little cargo ship, then? Why not some kind of military airship? Maybe with a squadron of LFOs to back us up?"

As the priest smiled, the lines and planes of his face stood out in sharp relief. "The Federation would respond to such an invasion with maximum force—perhaps enough to ignite the war which seems to be drawing closer. As to the LFOs, the InterDominion's Intelligence services have confirmed that LFOs over the entire planet have become inert. None have any idea why, but their armatures no longer respond to external controllers or Compac units. Since most military strike formations have relied upon LFOs for air-to-ground support and attack for nearly fifteen years, both our military and the Federation's have been thrown into confusion. The era of the LFO may be coming to an end, and neither side is prepared for it."

"So _that's_ why the Federation's getting so jumpy." Yuki jerked against the restraint of her seat belt. "They must think that _we_ have something to do with it. And those volcanoes on the Moon make it seem even more suspicious."

"They're a paranoid bunch anyway," Tommy agreed. "Yeah, I can see why this has to be a covert guerrilla strike, with as few troops as possible." The airship quivered for a moment, then dropped several meters before regaining altitude. "Crap! Is this thing really gonna get us all the way into the Federation in one piece?"

Director Emerson spoke for the first time since takeoff. "Don't you worry about _that_. This is _Kikka_, or 'Orange Blossom,' our experimental laminar-propulsion prototype. Instead of sucking trapar into an intake and expelling it after reactor heating, or sending it directly out of wing slots, the Blossom has a high-voltage charged reflective hull that _pulls_ us through the trapar like a fishing lure on a string. The idea was to give us vertical takeoff and landing that didn't swill fuel and scorch the landing area, like thrusters."

"Does it work?" Kaz asked, interested in spite of himself. "Sir?"

"Still a long way from stable as far as the VTOL stuff goes. But we found out that it had a couple of other advantages. One is that since we slide the trapar around us instead of disturbing it, we're invisible to turbulence detectors. And the other is that the ionized trapar envelope defeats radar. As long as there aren't any mascon triangulators scanning our area, we should be invisible to the Federation."

Kaz thought it over carefully. "And what about areas of low atmospheric trapar density? How does this laminar-thrust hull work in _those_?"

"Not worth a damn. That's why we still need the wings and a couple of conventional engines in reserve. Hopefully, if we run into any T-negative pockets, we can transition over to them in time."

"_Hopefully_? Hey, what does—?"

"Everybody fasten shoulder restraints and get ready for ballistic trajectory. I'll be lighting the rockets in less than a minute."

"Higher than the sun!" cried Yuki. But no one laughed.

—

—

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**Chapter Sixteen**

—

—

Holland watched as the eight senators of the Security Committee silently seated themselves around the conference table. _Ever since the Coralian Gift kicked in to age us backwards, every meeting looks more and more like a Monday morning high-school math class. If only it was that simple_. "Okay, everyone's here, and at this hour, that's no small accomplishment. Welcome to you all. Senator Estes, we're glad you could make it to this emergency meeting—the Prime Minister and I know you were on vacation in the mountains when the crisis hit."

The man sipped at a mug of steaming coffee and gave a short nod. "Business before pleasure. And this looks like a particularly nasty business all around. The Federation leadership really believes, then, that _we_ are behind the incapacitated LFOs and these peculiar moonquakes?"

"They believe it sufficiently to have mobilized their military forces on a High Alert basis," said Egan, alert and erect in his high-backed Chairman's seat, hands folded before his chest.

_Doesn't the man ever _sleep? wondered Holland.

Senator Otomo looked up sharply. "_That_ part still puzzles me. The New Lands are under the protection of the trapar barrier created by Lord Renton and Lady Eureka—which is presumably still in place. How can the Federation seriously threaten us? What good does massing their fleet at our eastern borders do?"

"Good point," said Holland. "And if the New Lands were all there was to the InterDominion, it'd puzzle _me_, too. But there're the former Federation provinces on the Coral side of the world to think of, too. _They're_ also part of the InterDominion. The High Council and the Federation military'd love nothing better than to take them back again. And having their air fleet on the border of the New Lands would keep us from sending the IPF in to prevent that."

"Can't we move the IPF in anyway?" asked Estes. "We can't just abandon the people in those areas."

"Sure, the IPF's up to the job. But smashing through the entire Federation fleet would mean casualties like you don't even want to imagine. And while we were busy blasting our way through, who knows what the Federation'd be up to with its ground forces before we could even get there?"

Egan nodded his approval. "The First Speaker is correct. The Federation appears to believe that by holding those provinces hostage, as it were, they may prevent us from launching any attack from our fictitious bases on the Moon. The High Council has an essentially paranoid outlook; they have long seen their former territories as staging areas from which we might invade them." He glanced down at a printed sheet from his briefcase. "Commander Sorel assures me that while the Federation air fleet is asserting its presence near the New Lands, their ground forces are quietly being marshaled to their border with their former provinces. It is a dangerous situation, for the Federation may move at any moment, out of either paranoia or sheer aggressivity. And many lives would be lost in the process."

"Speaking of the Commander," said Senator Boleski, waving his fingers in the air before him, "I can't help noticing that neither he nor Mr. Stevens are present, as they were at our previous Security Committee meeting. Nor—if I may be so bold as to mention it—are Lady Eureka and Lord Renton."

Holland leaned forward into the circle of harsh light from the overhead fixture. Boleski had voted against the No Confidence motion, but had not seemed to share in the general shock and disapproval when Fuillión had raised it. _He might be an opportunist, probing to see which side us going to be the winner._ "Both Jobs and Dominic are busy full time with the current crisis, Senator. As for the Lord and Lady—though I doubt they'd care to hear you call them that—they're being kept safe under the highest security measures. With the Federation getting trigger-happy, it's not out of the question that they might try... Well, let's just say they might try damn near _anything_."

"Are you sure you're not letting your own past experiences with the Federation color your judgment, Speaker Novak?"

Senator Mika Hiraga stiffened, glaring at Boleski with eyes of flint. "I see no call for us to descend to veiled insults about the Speaker's judgment. He's always been fair and open in his analyses, and I have no doubt that he's doing so now." She faced Holland directly. "But to dispel all doubts, we'd like a detailed report on the current situation and all pertinent facts."

Egan moved at last, stooping beneath the table to bring up a stack of green binders, each holding several dozen sheets of paper. On every cover was fixed a gold sticker embossed with the words TOP SECRET. "There, my good Senator. These will satisfy your request, I think. Please pass them round the table; there is one for each of you, and all are identical. Inside are summaries of the crisis, as well as all technical data that might bear upon it. And in addition, we have a bit of interesting information which the Speaker and I received too late to include in this written report."

At the cue, Holland tapped out a security code on the keypad inlaid into the table before him. Three laser projectors above converged to generate a three-dimensional display of two spheres, one roughly four times larger than its smaller counterpart. The image shuddered for a moment as appropriate texture maps were laid upon them, revealing them as the Earth and its Moon.

"So far," Egan went on, "we have confirmed that trapar is venting from at least six new lunar fissures, represented by the green spots you see here. Just what its origin might be is still perplexing, for the only known source of transparence light particles is the Coralian Mind itself, right here upon the earth. However, within the last quarter-hour, Professor Wossel's group at the University has analyzed satellite data in non-visible spectra and generated _this_ representation. Speaker Novak, if you please?"

Again, Holland keyed in an alphanumeric code, and the twin planets on the screen each became shrouded by a semitransparent mist. Stranger still, the two vapor layers were connected by a thin strand stretching between them, as if they were the two halves of an unbalanced barbell.

"What's _that_ stuff?" asked Bolesky, dropping his nuanced insinuations for the moment.

"It is _trapar_, sir. Mind you, this visualization greatly exaggerates its density; in reality it is as yet invisible to the naked eye. But it seems to be forming a sort of very attenuated atmosphere about the Moon, then somehow projecting this narrow stream outward to the Earth. So far, the only practical effects have been on radio communications, for it is wreaking havoc upon our ionized upper atmosphere. Many of our earth-orbit satellites have been rendered unreliable by the electrical effects."

Hiraga stared, both horrified and fascinated. "It's definitely flowing from the Moon to the Earth, then? Not the other way around?"

"No, Senator. The trapar is without question being generated on the Moon and projected _toward_ our planet—in spite of what Senator Fuillión has recently implied. We have as yet no information that would tend to indicate the mechanism for this transfer. Nevertheless, the Federation authorities—and apparently Senator Fuillión—have decided that this phenomenon is _our_ work."

Huw Malick, representative from the Grunewald district, lifted one hand. "Speaking for myself, I can tell you that I've never believed for an _instant_ that the Lord and Lady were in any way connected with this business. But tell me candidly, does the InterDominion have any _other_ capability of setting off any disturbances on the Moon? Do we have any craft capable of space flight?"

"No, we don't." It was Holland who answered. "But you'd have heard about it long ago if we had. Far as anybody knows, in all the two-thousand-odd years since Humanity came back from the stars, _nobody's_ built any new spaceships. Not even for short-range flights, like to the Moon." His face took on a troubled aspect. "Maybe we should have."

"That is neither here nor there," said Egan. "Events are proceeding far too rapidly for us to begin a space flight program now, even if we knew what to expect on the Moon. Our first priorities must be to defuse the immediate war crisis here on Earth. I propose that we offer to hold face-to-face meetings with Federation leaders, to allay their hysterical fears." He waited patiently for the buzz of surprise to die down. "However, as the InterDominion does not have a highly centralized power structure like the Federation, we need to do so on the basis of individual representatives from each province. I therefore propose to you ladies and gentlemen to select those from among you who are willing to serve as peace envoys."

"Anyone at all?" asked Senator Prabhada. "From the Senate, I mean. Regardless of...political affiliation?"

Dr. Egan smiled. "If you mean Senator Fuillión or those who share his beliefs, that is for you to decide. Neither I nor the First Speaker are dictators seeking power for its own sake. We coordinate; we do not rule."

Hiraga jumped to her feet. "Then I'll volunteer _myself_ as the first delegate. And I move that this meeting end now, so all of us can spread the news to our colleagues. Prime Minister, how soon do you intend to offer the Federation this peace conference?"

"Events are overtaking us. The sooner the better, I think."

Holland translated. "He means that the way things are going, _yesterday_ might just be soon enough."

"I second the motion," said Estes. "Prime Minister—do you have any other data on the phenomenon for us at this time?"

"Nothing yet. However, when we do, we shall communicate it to the entire Senate, as always." He rose from his chair. "The motion to adjourn is seconded and carried. I declare this meeting of the Security Council ended. Thank you all."

When the last of them had hurried from the Council chamber and the door swung shut behind, Holland leaned near to Dr. Egan while he powered down the projectors and gathered up his papers. "_That_ was as slick a con job as I've ever seen, Doc. You've temporarily immobilized Fuillión by planning a peace offer to the Federation that you know damn well they'll reject."

Egan arranged the contents of his briefcase carefully before closing it. "The Federation leadership is composed of fanatics with an insatiable desire for control, I admit. Nor is it likely that they will ever sit at a conference table, with we 'rebels' as equal partners. Unfortunate, is it not?"

"Yeah. And I couldn't help but notice that you were free with all the scientific data, but there were a couple of _other_ things you left out."

"Oh?" The Prime Minister raised his eyebrows with mild interest. "What items did I overlook?"

"Like the InterDominion's 'prince and princess' are missing and lost someplace in the Federation, up to God knows what. Like some hotdog Transport pilot is off with Phaedra, trying to find them. Not to mention that Viyuuden, my wife and a couple of other merry adventurers are _also_ away on a secret mission into Federation territory, and nobody's really _sure_ what _their_ intentions are. You know—trivial little tidbits like that?"

Egan hefted his briefcase and moved toward the door. "Really, Holland, the mark of true leadership is the ability to focus upon the matters of most immediate significance and leave all others to those most qualified to deal with them. We have bought ourselves a brief respite from political distractions, and can now afford to set our minds upon the truly important. You look terrible; I recommend you get some sleep before returning to your duties. How can you expect to perform at peak efficiency if you fail to keep your body properly rested? Please extinguish the lights, there's a good fellow."

—

—

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**Chapter Seventeen**

—

—

Lark looked from buckle to buckle of her harness, plainly unsure of what to do with it. "Let me show you how," said Kaz. Carefully, always aware of the seconds ticking away before rocket flight, he guided her arms through the loops and fastened the X-webbing across her chest.

"Thank you," she said.

"Counting down to booster ignition," announced Emerson. "Ten...nine...eight..."

Kaz struggled with his own harness, fumbling with the buckles and straps that had been so simple when he'd been demonstrating for Lark. _No, you idiot_! That _one goes over_ here! _Why'd you wait till_ now _to do this?_

"...six...five...four...three..."

One snap still remained. Feverishly, he shoved it in half a dozen wrong places, cursing when it failed to fit, squirming to give himself more room. _Maybe here_...

"...two..."

Lark's hand appeared, gently pushing the buckle into its appropriate slot. Kaz looked at her, startled. "Thanks..." he started to say.

"Commencing ballistic."

The rockets ignited with a rumbling shriek that shook the _Kikka_ and smashed Kaz back into the absorbent foam of his seat. _Maximum-gee,_ he told himself. _The Big Boot, everybody in the Transport Service calls it. You've felt it a dozen times._ _But...never in a ship this _small_. You can feel every flutter and creak. Like riding in a shoebox strapped to a warhead. Like... Like the XP-3._ He canceled the thought, directed his concentration to Lark. Unable to move his head, he pictured her riding with the acceleration force, bland, accepting, enduring without emotion. _What'd they do to her, the Federation? Does she even know herself? Why the hell did Viyuuden want her along? And what's she..._

The boosters cut out, their nozzles already groaning as they gave up their heat to the near-vacuum at the edge of space. The blessed relief of zero-gee enveloped him at last. Kaz shook his head to clear the ringing in his ears, but knew better than to give in to the temptation of loosening his harness. "You okay?" he whispered to Lark through parched lips. "This's just the top of the parabola. Don't release any of the buckles yet."

"I know." She did not look his way.

Already, gravity extended its fingers once more. Having been glued to their seats only minutes before, the _Orange Blossom's_ passengers were now yanked forward against their restraint harnesses as atmospheric compression slowed the ship's fall. Cabin temperature rose uncomfortably. Beside him, Kaz saw Lark's shoulder-length hair streaming out before her as if she were hanging from the ceiling. _Wonder how long to touchdown._

The ship trembled along its entire length. Ahead, Kaz watched Emerson gripping the control stick with a master's skill. He said something to Viyuuden, who nodded and touched various switches on the communications console, looking less than pleased with the result. Another tremor shook them, and then another. Emerson shouted back over one shoulder, but between the vibration and the roar of re-entry, Kaz could only make out "_...trapar density... No communication..._" Across the aisle from him, he saw Tommy and Yuki look to each other, then hold themselves rigidly upright as if bracing themselves for something.

In only an instant, he found out what. The _Orange Blossom_ shook violently, and he felt the sickening disorientation of a corkscrew spinout. Kaz wished again for a window, then decided it might be better not to see the whirling horizon outside after all. An alarm buzzer sounded from the pilot's section, only to be quickly cut off. Then with a lurch, the spin stabilized and they were back in controlled descent once more.

"We're hitting variable trapar density," shouted Emerson without taking his eyes from the instruments. "These currents are weird, not like anything I've ever seen before." Another vibration hit them, but he corrected instantly. "We're way off course...to the north. And communications're out. Some kind of interference..."

Kaz felt the twist in his stomach as they sideslipped, like a stone tumbling through vacuum. Director Emerson fought the controls to keep them stabilized, wrestling with the erratic trapar flow over the ship's skin.

"This is crazy—trapar holes all over the air. Map display says we're headed for the foothills near the Pierce mountain range... Don't know where to put down..." The _Blossom's_ stern slid to port, turning them sideward until he eased their angle of attack back to linear.

"So go back to normal flight," cried Yuki over the roar. "Forget the laminar drive for a couple of seconds and just get us down, okay?"

"I already thought of that! But there're _too many_ of these low-density regions. I'd have to shut off the laminar altogether, and if I do that, Federation radar'll pick us up in seconds. Kaz was right, dammit, this's worse than _anything_ we predicted. Gotta find some grippy trapar down here..."

At the mention of his own name, Kazuya's mind cleared at once. _The Pierce mountains? I've heard of_ them. _They're near._.. "The Cuchinero Canyon!"

"What? What're you...?"

"I was _there_, once—it's where the championship reffers all go! The canyon's in a venturi shape, and trapar accelerates there like nowhere else. The mountains around it concentrate the flow—it's really dense—and channel it down the canyon."

Viyuuden adjusted the map controls, then pointed to a spot on the holo display. Emerson nodded and edged the joystick to starboard. "Okay, we'll give it a try. Here goes."

Kazuya felt the _Kikka's_ center of gravity wheel away as Emerson put it into a tight descending portside turn. His head shook till he could barely see the topo display floating above the instrument panel, but Kaz strained to follow the white spark that represented the ship as it banked above the parallel ridges of the Pierce range, then dropped into the long channel between. At once, deceleration pulled him against his harness for a second time and he knew that the laminar drive was biting into the dense trapar. Then past the mountains and into the jagged canyon beyond, where the prevailing current roared past its treacherous walls to form the most powerful natural trapar flow anywhere on the planet.

But what was near-suicide for even the most skilled reffer now became a dance of death for the bulky _Blossom_ as Emerson guided them through the labyrinthine cliffs on instruments alone, nudging the stick this way and that, rolling, leaping, diving, riding the mighty current with a ferocious expertise that Kaz found nearly unbelievable. The image of the ship slithered through its narrowing virtual canyon like a quicksilver droplet, skimming past hard-edged outcroppings that had to be no more than a meter from their fragile skin.

Wrenched this way and that by G-forces that shifted with each violent second, Kazuya held away the dizziness that twisted his mind and pulled at his stomach. A jarring _thump_ shook the ship and for an instant he knew the terror that some unforgiving coral ridge had caught them at last. They went into a full mid-air barrel roll. Kaz held his breath, then jerked at the sound of rock contacting the hull.

But profound silence fell over them all, and he realized that somehow, they were on the ground. The _Orange Blossom_ had come to rest at last.

The cabin lights came up, and he saw Yuki and Tommy, pale as toadstools, speechless and blinking in the glare. Viyuuden unbuckled himself at once and made his way down the aisle, calm and undisturbed. "You are all uninjured? Good. It's fortunate you were buckled in properly. Mr. Emerson's piloting skills are every bit as magnificent as I was led to believe. But we haven't time to savor our gratitude—everyone release your restraints and come outside, quickly. Each of you take one of the packs from the lockers at the rear, please. Do not linger, for seconds are critical."

Kazuya resisted the temptation to tell the priest what he could do with his backpacks. Instead, he reached to Lark and helped her free herself. Then, his own harness released, he rose on unsteady feet and guided her to the rear. The doors to a flush storage compartment now spread wide, revealing five substantial black military packs. He handed one to Lark—surprised at their light weight—and the two of them staggered out into the chill night.

"Thanks, Jimmy," called Yuki, leaning back inside the ship for a moment. "A hell of a flight. You're even better now than you were with the _Moonlight_."

Viyuuden urged her out and slammed the hatchway behind him. "He has well earned your praise, Mrs. Novak, but you must wait until his return to deliver it. For now, he must make his way out of Federation airspace as quickly as possible."

"Won't he have more troubles with the trapar density on the way out?" Tommy asked.

"Certainly, but he will no longer do so at re-entry velocities. And by the time he reaches booster altitude for the return trajectory, trapar concentrations will become irrelevant. Stand clear as he lifts off, please!"

Kaz watched, fascinated, as a shimmering green glow cascaded along the entire outer skin of the _Orange Blossom_. In seconds, it stabilized into a downward curtain of trapar, wrapping the ship in its pale fire as it rose silently from the earth. Like a weathervane, it pivoted northwestward before sliding away toward the stars, a rippling ghost that soon faded in the distance. "It really _does_ do vertical takeoff without thrusters," said Kazuya, fascinated.

"Yes." Viyuuden shouldered his pack. "And now we must remake our plans, for we are far from our intended destination. Mr. Aruno—you said you had been to this area before."

"Uh... Yeah. Yeah, I did. Five years ago. I came here to meet Skeetch Bremmer. He was with the Free Underground, the anti-Federation resistance. He helped me make it to Thuu Bak."

"Then we have at least _some_ good news. My most recent information is that the Free Underground still exists, though driven even further into the shadows. Let us see if it's still active in this area."

Kaz nodded, feeling very much alone since the departure of the _Orange Blossom_. "Okay. Where should we head first?"

In the starlight, he could see Viyuuden's thin smile, and his heart sank. "I have no idea. _You_ have been here, not I; you must now take the lead. Everyone shoulder their packs, please, and follow Mr. Aruno."

—

—

—

**Chapter Eighteen**

—

—

"You sure it's safe for us to stop here overnight?" asked Maurice. Around them, the forest seemed to gather itself on all sides, as though even the towering spruce trees conspired to keep them concealed.

Max Condor removed the high-peaked officer's cap he'd been wearing all day and tossed it up and into the lorry's cab. "We're in the middle of the Federation. We're not going to be _safe_ anywhere." He took one look back at the silent, hulking lorry and went to a mossy fallen log to sit. "But yeah, we're pretty deep in this forest. With the Federation on general alert, it's not likely they're going to be looking for us in here. As long as no photo-recon airships are busy overhead." He sighed, long and exhausted. "It's almost night, anyway."

"You could use some rest," Phaedra said, and went to sit at his side. "You've been driving that thing since we left the town. Here, have a drink. There was a whole rack of full canteens in the back, in with a bunch of other military gear."

Standing at one of the rear fenders, Maurice could only watch in wonder to see her so thoughtful. _She's changed. Maybe we all are. But into what?_

He felt Ariadne come up behind him and turned. "Aren't you tired? We've been bouncing around in that truck bed for hours and hours."

"Of course I am. But I don't intend to let down my guard. The Federation is everywhere around us, like some horrible spider, spinning a web." She still wore the tailored jacket over her wings, bulky and shapeless, like his own.

"It's not..." Maurice felt an empty cramp unwinding in his stomach. "I'm hungry. I wish there was some food back there with the water."

"There is. It's in the waxed-paper bag that Arda gave us."

"Yeah! I almost forgot! Let's look and see..."

"Well, _I_ didn't forget. I didn't forget that the kind people who gave it to us are probably _dead_ by now. I'm not sure I can eat it, remembering them." Her lavender-pink eyes, ordinarily so soft, took on a crystalline sparkle in the fading light.

"They _meant_ for us to eat it. Starving yourself is a lousy way to show them respect." Maurice climbed up into the bed, where he found the sack behind a pile of military blankets. He jumped back to the ground and held it high. "Hey, you guys! Come on over! We've got a little food, here!"

Max and Phaedra wasted no time. "What is it?" Phaedra wanted to know, almost childishly eager.

"I dunno, let me see... Oh, here, it's all wrapped in more waxed paper. Looks like..." He nearly laughed, until hunger stopped him. "It's boiled potatoes. And some steamed whole onions. Cold, but there's plenty enough for us all to share. Here, Phaedra. You too, Max"

"Thank you," she said, handing a potato and onion to Max, then taking some for herself.

"Where'd you get these?" asked Max through a mouthful of potato.

"Back there in LaMarche. There's a whole lot we haven't had any time to tell you, yet. A couple of Vodarek people took us in not too long after we landed. We were about to move on when those Security Police started raiding houses."

Phaedra licked onion from her fingers. "Mmmmm, good. Were they looking for you two?"

"Dunno, we never found out. What d'you think, Ariadne?"

She stood staring at her potato with something approaching distaste before taking a small bite. "I think it's _horrible_ the way the Federation oppresses the Vodarek. Potatoes and onions—what kind of diet is that? And yet they _shared_ it with us."

"If it makes you feel any better," said Max, "it's not only the Vodarek. Eating well in the Federation isn't easy. The state-managed collective farms are run so badly that there's never enough to go around. Food stores are expensive—when they have any goods at all. The shelves're usually half-empty; shortages are pretty common. So a lot of people keep private vegetable plots on the sly, and whatever they can't eat themselves, they sell on the black market. That's probably where these potatoes and onions came from. They're pretty good, actually."

Maurice took fresh interest in this strangely many-sided pilot. "Phaedra said you used to live in the Federation. Did _you_ have trouble getting anything good to eat?"

"Hah! I was in the _military_. We _always_ got the best food—no matter who else had to go hungry to give it to us." He looked as though he might say more, but finished his potato, then wiped his hands on a rag from the truck and passed it to Phaedra. "Thanks." The two of them made their way off into the lowering twilight together.

"I was pretty small when _I_ lived in the Federation," Maurice mused while Ariadne picked at her potato. "I always wondered if it was really as dreary as I remembered it. Even that year Maeter and Linck and me lived with Grandpa while Mom and Dad were away, I guess I thought it was just in Bellforest that things were so bad."

"I _hate_ the Federation. They kidnapped me and tried to kill us both. They almost _did_ kill me. And Gabriel and Arda, and who knows how many others. They're not human, those Federation lackeys. They're beasts."

"Look, I was never so scared in my life as when they took you. But we made it; it's _over_ now." He reached out for her but she turned away, closed even to the touch of his thoughts.

"No, it's _not!_ Not while those killers can still shoot down innocent people and bully people and hurt people and _take_ people. They don't listen to _reason_, Maurice. Only to..." She let off, sniffling, then faced the sky as if the young stars were each and every one her enemy. "Only to _force_."

"What the hell? What's the _matter_ with you? Since we got here, it's like you're turning into somebody else that I don't even _know_ any more! You don't have to be so..."

"I'm going to practice flying again before I go to sleep. You should start doing the same thing, or you'll _never_ learn to use your wings."

Maurice clicked his heels together and saluted. "Aye aye, _captain_!" But she was already walking off among the trees, wrapped in her own thoughts, paying him no attention at all.

#

Weary and troubled, Max spread one of the heavy military blankets on the ground, then dropped another one beside it. The rain had brought plunging temperatures in its wake, and the night promised to be clear, cold and breezy.

Phaedra, watching him, sat herself on a fallen tree, one leg folded beneath her. "Things are getting a little out of control with those two. I can feel it. Something awful happened to them before we caught up to them. I don't know what it was, but it really rocked the boat somehow."

Max knelt to the blanket, straightening out its wrinkles and removing pine cones and twigs from beneath. "I'm no judge. Apart from having been in the same airship with them, I only really met them for the first time last night. Bush pilots don't move in high enough society to rub shoulders with the Royal Family."

"Hey, what's got _you_ so cranky all of a sudden?"

He threw up his hands, groping for the words. "Sorry. I'm starting to feel like I'm crashing somebody else's family reunion. Good old Max is the only one around here who hasn't got a—a n_eural node_, in case you haven't noticed. You're the one who understands them, who can feel something about what's going on with them. All _I _can do is keep taking us deeper and deeper into hostile territory, just on faith that you're right when you say they know what the hell they're doing."

In the darkness, he saw the outline of her face turning to the ground. "Well... Oh. I guess...I guess there really isn't any reason you _should_ trust me, really. I just kinda hoped..."

"You?" Max throttled the shout building inside of him. "No, you've got it backwards—I _do_ trust you, Phaedra. It's _those_ two who make me worry." He came nearer to her, put his hands to her shoulders. "Maybe I'm like the Vodarek, in a way. I always had this idea that the InterDominion's Coralian Royal Family was somehow in tune with the Coral—tapping into some kind of Cosmic Wisdom, I suppose." He waved one hand toward the forest beyond the lorry, where irregular green sparks and flashes between the branches told of Maurice's dogged attempts at flight. "But they're _not_ like that, not like that at all. It seems to me, now, like Ariadne's the one in charge. And after what I saw back at LaMarche, I'm starting to wonder...if she might be someone we shouldn't follow too blindly."

"Oh. Oh! Yeah, okay, I see. Sure, that's different. Hey, are you gonna sleep out here tonight?"

He shrugged. "Yeah. Maurice and Ariadne can have the truck. And you, if you want it. I'll stay out here, where I can keep an eye out for things. Like Federation airships."

"Sure. Y'know, you're really...a thoughtful kind of guy, aren't you?" Phaedra looked back toward the shadow of the lorry, away from him, rubbing one boot in the fallen needles. "Y'know, I kinda think that you'd be...y'know...it's kind of _dangerous_ out here alone all night. And I was thinking that, well, maybe I..."

Max sucked in his breath and pulled her to himself, one hand over her mouth. "Shhh. _Listen_."

"What?" she whispered as she pulled his hand away. "Something wrong?"

He spoke next to her ear, with no more than the faintest breath. "In the woods. Off to the right. Footsteps."

Both of them stood in silence, motionless. A night bird squealed and flapped away among the branches. _Crunch_. _Crunch_. A twig snapped. "Someone's coming. More than one."

In his arms, he felt Phaedra nod. "What'll we do?"

"Warn the others. Tell Ariadne and Maurice with your jewel. Just let them know we're in danger. You can do that, can't you?"

Another nod. "I think so. Just wait a second..." A tiny spark, a half-glimpsed firefly on a distant field, twinkled within the node on her forehead. "There."

"Okay. Now get down, slowly, on the blanket. I stupidly left the rifle and ammo in the front seat—I'm going back for it."

"Max, _no_." She held at his arm, pulling at him with a strength far out of proportion to her size. "It's too far. Even in the dark, whoever's out there'll spot you! You'll get..."

"If that happens, take your cousins, or whatever they are, and get away while our visitors're busy with me. Maurice and Ariadne'll listen to you. Phaedra, _please_, let go..."

Spotlights, four of them, erupted out of the gloom, exposing the lorry in their merciless false dawn. "_By authority of the Federation of Predigio Towers, you are commanded to surrender yourselves_," came the harsh amplified voice. "_You will discard all weapons. You will come forward with your hands over your heads. You have ten seconds to comply_."

—

—

—

**Chapter Nineteen**

—

—

Kazuya knew an uncomfortable sensation of unreality as they made their way through the darkness, as though he were reliving an old and unpleasant dream. Reminders of his previous visit to Cuchinero Canyon kept returning to him with each step: the cluster of little reffers' huts; the gravel road that kept slithering under his boots; the gnarled larch at the end of the rough dirt path.

"This's the place," he said, coming to a stop while he oriented himself. A constellation of tiny lights glowed from windows in the shallow valley that spread itself before them. "The ref champions called this 'Coochville.' It's where they all stayed while they were here to ref in the canyon."

"In which one does Skeetch Bremmer live?" asked Viyuuden, coming to his side.

"I don't know. I never did. When I was here, a guy named Ripper Neary took care of me. I passed out from heat and exhaustion on the way here, and somebody brought me to his hut while I was unconscious. I never found out who."

Viyuuden put both hands to his hips and rotated his spine in a methodical way. "That would be _Richard_ Neary, who ranked third among the high scorers of the Federation national reffing championships seven years ago. Gregory Egan, Commander Sorel and I delved deeply into the details of your story at the time."

"Yeah, I figured that you did. Ripper was living with a girl called 'Lala,' then. Anyway, it was Ripper who arranged for me to meet Skeetch on that hill overlooking the Canyon, back near where we landed." He squinted into the dark. "It's a little hard to figure my way around after so long. I don't think there's as many cabins down below as there were then. Looks like some of the trees're gone, too. Seems to me that Ripper's place was...over _there_."

A crisp early-autumn wind whispered through the valley, setting dry leaves to scuttle across their paths. "So let's go down and see if he's home," said Tommy. "It's getting cold out here."

To hesitate now would be to seem indecisive. Kaz stepped forward into the gloom.

Another ten minutes' walking brought them between the first row of shacks. From a few came the tinny strains of music, but most remained empty and silent. _Deserted?_ Kaz could not be sure. No one emerged to challenge them, but he couldn't escape the eerie feeling of being watched from dark places.

Here and there, one or two windows showed dull yellowish light._ Paraffin, that's right. There's no electricity out here._ Kaz counted himself lucky that one of the illuminated cabins was the one he recalled as belonging to Ripper Neary.

Acutely conscious of Lark standing just behind him, he marched up to the weathered front door and gave three firm knocks. Inside, he could hear faint voices, hushed and afraid. Then a shuffling and rumbling as of furniture being moved.

The door swung open, half-blinding him with the sudden glare of a paraffin lamp centered on a bare table. "Yeah?"

"I'm... My name's Kaz. Kazuya Aruno. I'm looking for Ripper. Does he still live here?"

"He might. What d'you wanna know for?" The voice was female, rough and throaty.

"Well, I... I mean _we_ were kind of hoping that he could give us some directions or something. See, I was here five years ago. Ripper took me in for a while. I was..."

Two hands stabbed forward out of the light, holding him by his shoulders. The woman leaned closer, exhaling a heavy waft of alcohol into Kaz's face. "Yeah. _Yeah_. I _do_ remember you, kid. Hey, Rip! It's okay, it's somebody we know. That Kaz kid. Come on out!"

From a darkened archway behind her—Kaz assumed it was the bedroom—lurched a thick-waisted man in a pair of reffing shorts several sizes too small. He pushed back a clump of hair and squinted out with furtive rodent eyes. "Kaz?" With a noisy rattle, he cleared his throat and started again. "Kaz? Oh, _yeah_. The one we dragged in off the road, passed out? Jeez, that was, like, _years_ ago. Well, let him in, let him in. Come on, Kaz."

"Ripper? Uh, thanks. Can my friends come in, too?"

"What, Reffers?"

"No, we're just...traveling." He gestured behind, into the darkness. "I wanted them to meet you."

The woman pulled her worn bathrobe more tightly about her and shrugged. "Sure, why not? Not like anybody ever comes here to visit any more. Anybody who's not lookin' for money, that is."

The remark seemed aimed at Ripper Neary, but Kaz resisted the temptation to look his way. "Okay, you can all come in, now."

First through the door was Viyuuden, who introduced himself with a formal bow. "My name is Jorgensen. Dr. Franklin Jorgensen. And these are my companions, Miss Miku Honbu and Miss Yukiko Murada. Mr. Kazuya Aruno you already know, I believe. Kazuya, where is Miss...Julia?"

_Lark. He's talking about Lark. Where the hell_ is _she? _"I don't know, Doctor, I thought she was right in back of me. Maybe she fell behind on the way, or got lost. Should I go and look for her?"

"In a moment. First, I must thank our hosts, Mr. Neary and Miss..."

"Dukhonin," she said at once, flashing a broad and desperate smile. "Laraine Dukhonin. But everybody just calls me 'Lala.'"

Kazuya's eyes widened. The Lala he remembered had been casually devastating, a ripe summer peach redolent of warm and secret promise. All of it now unhappily departed, drowned and buried beneath flabby layers of disillusionment. What those dull eyes had seen over the past five years, he had no desire to know.

"Our deepest apologies for having disturbed you at this late hour, Miss Dukhonin. We are researchers, you see, investigating the trapar-flow patterns in the Canyon. But now that we've heard of the current national emergency, we need to return to our University as quickly as possible."

Laraine looked him over from top to bottom in a frankly evaluating way. "So you're an Academician, then? Hey, you sure you wouldn't wanna...stay the night?"

"The doc _said_ he needs to get back." Ripper crossed the room in what he evidently hoped would be a casual way, putting himself between them. "We'll give you directions. Then you can be on your way, right?" Kaz noticed that his eyes tended more toward Yuki and Tommy than Viyuuden.

"Excellent. And if we may trouble you a bit further...does a Mr. Skeetch Bremmer still live in this area?"

Lala and Ripper exchanged wary glances. "Skeetch? Now, why'd you want to be lookin' for _him_ for?"

"Why, I've been told that he was a great athlete, a world champion ref artist. I know little of such things, but I hoped to meet such a man during our brief time in this area."

"Then you haven't been told half _enough_." Neary poured himself half a glassful of some amber liquid and downed it without offering it to any of the others. "Skeetch was _busted_ two years ago."

"Two years, seven months," said Lala. The neckline of her bathrobe gaped open; Kaz looked away.

"Arrested?" Yuki moved forward, into the circle of lamplight. "But I heard he was the greatest reffer since... Well, in a long time."

"Yeah, he was good on a board, all right." Lala smirked and wiped at one eye with the back of her wrist. "Good in other places, too. Well, so I _heard_. But the Secpos got him. Treason and sedition, they said." She laughed, hoarse and ragged. "Always fulla high ideals, was Skeetch. Look where it got'im."

"Keep your mouth _shut_ about that stuff, Lala." Another glass of liquid met its end at Neary's hand. "See, we don't talk much about Skeetch any more, Doctor. Him and a couple of his pals, they were involved with that 'Free Underground' crap. Not that _we_ ever had anything to do with that stuff, mind you. When the Secpos swooped in an' cleaned them out, ninety percent of the resident ref crowd got scared—made tracks out of here as fast as they could." He waved outward, toward the unseen canyon beyond. "Greatest currents on the whole damn planet, just goin' to waste these days. Used to be there'd be thirty, forty, even more, out there catchin' the waves, from dawn till near sundown. What a sight that was in the old days, guys loopin' up outa the canyon toward the sky, then sideriding the current into a mushout just above..."

"Can't you just _shove_ that Good Old Days crap?" Lala's sullen eyes blazed, and she snatched the glass from his hand, to pour a measure for herself. "It don't buy lamp oil, or food, or...or...any kind of a _life_." She spun on one foot, tripping over a loose slipper, then stamped off into the darkened room beyond.

Neary looked away, tugged up the waistband of his shorts and cleared his throat. "Don't mind her, any of you. It's just that... Well, she's right. Reffing won't pay the bills. But when it's all you've ever been good at..."

"I understand," said Viyuuden, and Kaz was sure that he really did. "Reconciling the life of the spirit with practical needs is always a difficult proposition. Now, if you would be kind enough to draw us a rough map of the countryside hereabouts, we'll impose ourselves no longer on your time."

#

"Well, wasn't _that_ a nice little love nest," Tommy said, once they were back outside in the night.

Kaz tugged the collar of his jacket closer about his neck. "Kind of funny, though. The first time I was here, they knew all about what Skeetch was doing with the Free Underground. But now, they acted like they barely even knew him."

"Of course not. They had no reason to trust you."

Kaz jumped as Lark materialized out of the shadows and fell in step with them. "Where've _you_ been? Why didn't you come inside with us?"

"There was no need. I investigated a few of the empty shacks, then listened outside the window. Those people would've been fools to trust someone who came to them asking about a known political criminal. You might've been informants or police agents."

"I...I guess that's true. Maybe it's been so long since I lived in the Federation that I forgot how careful you have to be in what you say. All the same, you shouldn't have gone off on your own like that. _Anything_ coulda happened to you."

"Everything already has."

Viyuuden shone a small flashlight on Ripper Neary's crudely-drawn map. "We must bear to the right at this intersection ahead. From there, another ten kilometers or so should lead us to Prefecture Road 173, which is served by a bus line. Beyond lies the town of Chuvashia. It should have at least one railway station."

"What, we're going to just get on a train?" asked Yuki. "What kind of secret operation _is_ this?"

"We have other clothing in our packs. We will not be so obvious as you fear. And it's the fastest transportation to where we must go."

Kaz hesitated for a moment, then asked the question that had bothered him from the start. "And just exactly where _is_ it that we 'must go?'"

"Pilgrim Island. Come, we are far deviated from our timetable and we must hurry."

—

—

—

**Chapter Twenty**

—

—

Maurice spiraled out of control, leaning this way and that in a desperate attempt to avoid colliding with the trees. He raised one wing—resisting the temptation to flap them as Ariadne had said—but the movement overcompensated, putting him into a counterspin, surrounding him with a cloud of his own trapar. Blinded by its radiance, he struggled to get above the trees before ramming himself into the trunk of a huge oak.

Stunned, the breath knocked from him, Maurice spread his wings wide and poured what concentration he could still muster into pushing trapar downward, to cushion his fall. Only partially successful, he crashed to the forest floor, tumbling across moss, crisp dry leaves and decaying pine needles. Abrasions burned all over his bare chest and back, quickly closing from the regeneration of the Coralian Gift.

Over and over he cursed. Every few seconds, Ariadne, with her comet's-tail of trapar, flickered across starry gaps in the trees above. It only made him more irritable. _Sure, she's had wings since she was born, but all the same, she's only been able to make trapar with them for a couple of days. How come she's so good with them, and I'm so damn...clumsy?_

He stood, brushing forest debris from his body. "Ariadne? Hey, at least give me a hand with learning this, would you? I'm not—"

He froze. A flash of fear touched with Phaedra's distinctive aura alerted him that _something_ was going wrong. Then from somewhere in the depths of the wood, beyond the parked lorry, Maurice caught a distinct rustling, as of someone moving slowly through the leaves. He strained to hear more, pushing his newly-acute Coralian hearing to its utmost. _There. Another set of steps, both of them heavy. And at least one other. Whoever's out there, it's not Phaedra or Max._

He held his palm to his forehead, concealing the Coralian jewel's flicker as he reached out for Ariadne's mind with his own. The first three times his thought bounced away, deflected again, closing him out as she had all day long. But at last he felt the grudging release of her mental barrier.

_What do you_ want, _Maurice? I'm trying to concentrate on learning to fly. Which is what _you_ ought to be doing, you know._

_That's what I _am_ doing! I'm— Never mind. You've gotta get down here right away. Someone's coming through the woods. And the way they're trying to be quiet about it, I think they're trying to sneak up on the truck. _

Almost instantly, a glittering stream of trapar fell through the trees like a descending angel. Ariadne touched down with only a slight stumble and hurried to him. "What direction?" she whispered.

Maurice pointed through the darkness. _Switch back to the mind-talk, so they don't hear us_.

_All right... Yes, I hear it. A group of them. They can't have seen us, or they wouldn't have bothered being so quiet. They must think we're all asleep in the back of the lorry._

_Yeah. Federation, I'll bet. I wonder how the hell they tracked us. Maybe that gas attendant this morning got suspicious of Max. Maybe someone saw you flying, back at LaMarche. Somebody who_ survived, _that is. Maybe..._

_Oh, it doesn't matter _now, _Maurice!_ _Those Federation savages must be—_

The blast of a bullhorn split the forest silence. "_By authority of the Federation of Predigio Towers, you are commanded to surrender yourselves. You will discard all weapons. You will come forward with your hands over your heads. You have ten seconds to comply_." Through the trees, the lorry jumped into view, illuminated by a battery of powerful lights.

"It _is_ the Federation!" She no longer troubled to use silent speech. "They're surrounding the truck!"

"Uh... I only heard them on one side. Are you sure they're—?"

"They _can't_ do this again. Not _again_. We're going to stop them once and for all."

"Well, sure, Ariadne, but how about we think up a plan, first, together? How about if we—"

"Our _plan_ is to _destroy_ them!" Without warning, she reached her mind out to his and connected with him, weaving the interlocking patterns of complete merging. Maurice, caught off guard, put up little resistance at first. But something in the flavor of what he saw in her thoughts at that moment made him fight to retain at least a shred of independent consciousness.

—_Ariadne, no! I know what you want to do._

_Then_ help _me, and stop holding back! Join me completely, the way we did before._

—_No, think it over, will you? That was_ different. _When we did it before, it was to save your life!_

_And what do you think_ this _is all about? The Federation wants me and it wants you. And they'll take Max and Phaedra, too. _

"_You have five seconds to surrender yourselves!_" announced the bellowing voice from the forest.

_We've got to move _now, _Maurice! Stop holding back and join all your power to mine!_

—_I don't even _know_ what kind of power we've got, and neither do you. I just know that you want to go too far with it! We can't—_

_It's too late to discuss it! If you won't give me your full force, I'll use the partial merge and get what I can! I need to deal with those targets right now!_

—_'Targets?' You don't know what you're..._

The argument flashed by in less than a heartbeat of realtime. Ariadne ran forward through the trees, her rage overwhelming Maurice. He followed almost involuntarily, his spirit only partially joined to hers, stumbling over roots, driven on by the burning force of her will. Federation troops, eight of them, rose up from concealment, into the brilliant light, aiming SFARs toward the empty lorry. Driven by a hatred stronger than her fear, Ariadne jumped into the clearing, shirtless, wings spread wide, arms raised as if casting a curse. "I'm _sick_ of you!" she screamed. "Sick of your arrogance and your brutality and your _killing_ people! Let us _alone!_"

Maurice felt himself being drawn into her, drawn to the Joining, ensnared in her fiery purpose. Little flickers of green ran along the ground and into the trees as a livid flame of trapar swelled around her, pulsing, throbbing, whirling, growing in strength. She allowed it to build to its maximum potential, then cast it outward into the forest, a rolling tide of sheer power that seized the horrified troopers in nerve-searing waves, paralyzing their bodies and clawing at their minds. They rose up, all eight of them, into the air, where they jerked and danced in the floodlights like men on a gallows, moaning and shrieking.

—_Ariadne, _stop _it! You're _killing_ them!_

_Be quiet, Maurice! I won't run from these beasts any longer! I_ hate_ them for what they did to me, and to Mother and Father and Gabriel and Arda and...and you. But they'll...never...frighten...anyone...again..._

—_Ariadne, NO!_

Maurice hardened himself to the pain of what he must do, pulled together all that remained of his own will and gathered his sense of individual self, tearing out his connections to their joined mind one by one. Each loss was an agony, like ripping away his own flesh. Worst of all, somewhere, he could feel her own terror at losing his presence, and her confusion, followed by the blind fear of being alone. And the knowledge that _he_ was the cause of it brought Maurice to tears.

Something collapsed inside of him. He felt an intangible whiplash, snapping him back, leaving him alone in his own body once again, weary, terrified, exhausted, overwhelmed by regret and the guilt of his ultimate betrayal. Knives of pain gouged at his brain; he tried to rise, fell, and rose again. Ariadne lay before him, crumpled and small, in the focus of the cruel floodlights. No further voices shouted commands from the silent forest, but he barely cared. Maurice bent and took her in his arms, tenderly cradling her wings as he lifted her. His tears dropped to her chest as he carried her, step by step, to a destination he could not yet remember.

#

"_You have five seconds to surrender yourselves!_"

Max Condor held Phaedra tightly to him, pinning them both to the ground, away from the glare of the lorry. "What the _hell?_" she breathed. "The Secpos again?"

"Those aren't just Secpos, they're Federation Landestroopers. This is bad—it means the Federation military's been following us. They wouldn't go to all that trouble over just a stolen truck, not during a general mobilization."

"And that means they probably suspect about Maurice and Ariadne, doesn't it?"

He nodded. "Maybe just Ariadne. She's the one who put on the light show back in LaMarche. _Damn_. Those guys're real pros, so keep down and keep your voice low. No way I can get back for the rifle now. Bastards're out _there_, just over that rise. I hope to hell they haven't spotted Maurice and Ariadne."

"Or _us_."

"Or us. They probably think we're all in the truck, asleep, so at least we've got a little surprise on our side." He pulled at the free military blanket, tugging it from the forest floor and draping it over them. "If we stay under this, we should be able to crawl into the woods without them seeing us, before they realize we're not in the... What the hell? What's she _doing?_"

He and Phaedra watched, astonished, as Ariadne stood before the lorry's tailgate with wings spread and arms outstretched. The trees and grass crackled with gathering energy and Max felt the fine hairs on his arms rise. "Where's Maurice? What's she saying? Can you understand?"

"No. No, but I can _feel_ something. She's fighting—struggling...with _Maurice_. They're joined in their heads...but _not_ joined. Like he's trying to get free or something. It's scary, really scary."

A whirlwind of green fire swirled and swelled around Ariadne, outshining even the cesium-laser floodlights as it ballooned to a great bulging mass that shot long snakes of trapar out into the wood. Engulfed in shimmering trapar cocoons, all eight soldiers rose twitching into the air, dropping their weapons and bellowing in wordless, animal moans and shrieks. Max's skin crawled. "What the hell _is_ that? Is she torturing them? They can't take much more of—"

The blazing trapar display went out. All eight of the soldiers dropped heavily to the ground, where they lay still as death. Ariadne quivered for a moment, then collapsed, followed moments later by an anguished-looking Maurice, who picked her up and staggered in Max and Phaedra's general direction.

Max jumped to his feet. "Phaedra—grab those two and get them here, to the blanket. Then get as much of our stuff as you can out of the truck."

"What about the troopers? Won't they...?"

"That was an eight-man squad, and I guarantee they won't be doing _anything_ for a long time, if at all. Go on, get Maurice and Ariadne, then wait for me next to the lorry. We've got to abandon it now. But this bunch has got to have an AT pursuit car parked back there somewhere. I'll shut off those lights, then go get it."

"Gotcha. Anything else?"

Max hesitated for only an instant. "Yeah. Pick their pockets. The Landestroopers, I mean. Get their wallets; we're gonna need money to get any further on this crazy trip."

—

—

—

**Chapter Twenty-One**

—

—

Slowly, Renton's mind registered the knock on the door. Eureka stirred on the couch, making a halfhearted attempt to rise, but he waved her back. "Never mind, I'll get it."

"Thank you. I hope it's not Holland or Dr. Egan. I don't feel up to any new public appearances right now."

Renton pulled the door open, surprised to find Anemone waiting there, looking more disconsolate than he had seen her in years. "Anemone. Something wrong? Come on in, come inside."

"Thanks." She dropped into the nearest armchair with a long sigh. "I feel like hell. Listen, have you guys been getting anything...strange lately?" With one pink fingernail, she tapped at the neural jewel on her forehead.

"Yes," said Eureka, rolling to a sitting position and straightening the hem of her short gown. "For hours. Fear, rage, regret...then a tremendous headache that's affected both of us. It's only now starting to go away."

"Yeah. Except for the headache bit, that sounds like me. Something's goin' _on_ out there, in the Federation." Anemone waved vaguely toward the eastern window of the Temple apartment. "The kids're involved in some kinda trouble, I know it. And I can't do a damn thing to help them."

Renton poured her a cup of fruit juice, which she accepted with little enthusiasm. "Well, neither can we. It's pretty hard, this sitting and waiting. Makes me wonder how Grandpa felt while Eureka and I were off doing all those wild things five years ago."

"Yeah, but you two aren't _allowed_ to charge out into the Federation and give them a hand. _I_ had the chance, but I..." She gulped greedily at the juice and put the glass down on an end table, hard enough to slop a few pastel droplets out onto its surface. "I had the _chance_ to go, with Viyuuden and his bunch. But I was too cranked up over that Lark vermin. I couldn't control myself, so now Phaedra's out there in trouble, and I'm not there when she needs me. I was a _jerk_."

"You mustn't be so hard on yourself," said Eureka. "After what you went through, it's not difficult to understand."

"After what _you and Renton_ went through, it'd be even _easier_ to understand. But neither of _you_ went crazy and made idiots of yourselves."

Renton shrugged lightly, hoping to put her a bit more at ease. "Everybody's different. What about Dominic? He must be feeling something, too."

"Maybe he is, but he's always off at New Tresor, at that emergency command center they've put together there, so I can't ask him. At least he can _do_ something, dammit!" She pounded the arms of her chair with both fists. "I _hate_ sitting around being _useless_."

"Yeah, well so do _we_." Renton's patience, already frazzled, began to wear thin. "But maybe..." A new thought struck him. "Maybe that's what he meant..."

She watched him closely. "What _who_ meant?"

"Viyuuden. Remember that meeting in his office, when he told us about him leading an expedition to go in after the kids? I guess you were too wound up to really be paying attention. He said that our part in this business was probably going to be bigger than we—and I think he meant you and Dominic, too—imagined. I thought he was just trying to make me feel better, but now I'm not so sure. You know how it is with the Vodarek priesthood—they're always saying things full of some deep meaning that you don't get until after you've thought about it for a day or two. Norbu was like that, and it used to drive me crazy."

Anemone perked up at this news. "Viyuuden said that? I wish I'd been listening. But then, I wasn't in much of a mood for listening last time I saw him, was I? What a jerk I've been."

"You're _not_ a 'jerk,'" said Eureka. "Why can't you just accept—"

The communicator buzzed, and they all looked to each other, dread reflected on their faces. Renton reached for the receiver. _Is this gonna be about the kids? _"Hello? Yeah, this's Renton. Oh, it's you. They are? Oh, crap. Okay, we'll be ready. Thanks."

Eureka and Anemone were on their feet at once. "Is it the children?" Eureka wrung both hands together. "Are they...?"

"No, it's not them. That was Dr. Egan. I guess you spoke too soon—he says we need to be ready for some kind of video appearance for the press at any minute. Maybe even a public statement, to reassure the people of the InterDominion."

"Reassure them about what? For the press? Why? What's going on?"

Renton rubbed at his Coralian eyes, trying to massage away the pain of the headache. "It's the Federation. Seems like they've moved a lot of troops to the borderlands on the Coral-covered half of the world, and they're deploying their air fleet along the edge of the trapar shield around the New Lands. Juergens has ordered our IPF fleet into the air, on maximum alert."

Anemone swallowed the rest of her juice. "Maximum alert? Holy crap, that sounds like they're getting ready for..."

"For war," said Eureka.

—

—

—

**Chapter Twenty-Two**

—

—

Max poked experimentally at the Federation squad car's controls, inching the driver's seat backward to give him adequate room at the pedals. Phaedra jumped in the front passenger side and slammed the door behind her.

"Those two back there—" she jerked one thumb toward the troop compartment in the rear, where Maurice and Ariadne lay in silence across one thinly-padded bench seat "—are they gonna be all right?"

"They're both still alive, if that's what you mean. Ariadne's in some kind of shock. Maurice just keeps clutching his head and mumbling like a drunk. Did you get the wallets? What kind of shape were those troopers in?"

"Here." she opened the front of her jacket and dumped eight black military billfolds pattering out onto the floor. "I didn't have time to count the money. Anyway, I felt like a grave robber. Those guys were just groaning and jerking. Not scorched or blasted or anything, just out of their minds."

"Uh-huh. Let's hope they stay that way for a while. What's in the glove compartment?" The Compac interface light went green; he revved the engine and the armored pursuit car bounced forward as he spun it about, back down toward the main road.

"Some printed stuff, forms, looks like military orders. And _maps_. Hey, that oughta be good, right?"

"Best news I've heard today. See if you can find where we are, will you? We've wasted enough time blundering around the Federation without directions." With a final teeth-chattering jounce of the hard suspension, he pulled out onto the highway and accelerated. "This is State Roadway 185DE. Does that help?"

Phaedra peered at the map in the feeble light from a flexible dashboard lamp. "Yeah. Yeah, this must be where we are, maybe a hundred kilos beyond that filling station. In another twenty, we'll come to a fork. Go right, and SR 36RF will take us to a town called Emilianów. If we stay on that one, five kilos later we can join up with the Joyous Peoples' Motorway. It'd be a long drive, but that one goes right into the Founding District. That's the city where..."

"I know. It's the capital city, built around Sacred Return Lake. And in the middle of _that_ is Pilgrim Island, that can only be reached by the Glorious Homecoming Bridge. One crazy step at a time, if you don't mind."

In the rear-view mirror, Max saw Maurice grope around and pull himself upright. "Ariadne. What's the matter with _Ariadne_?" Maurice groaned.

Phaedra turned round to face him. "We kinda hoped _you_ could tell us that. What _happened_ back there?"

"I don't... I _deserted_ her. Pulled free from..._us_. Left her _alone_. You don't know what it's like. I hurt her so much. But I _had_ to. Had to. She'd've _killed_ them if I hadn't. She was gonna burn them _all_, every one of them. I'm not sure I stopped it in time."

The headlights of a military convoy passed them in the opposite direction. Max held his breath, but the convoy rolled on, paying a single AT pursuit car no heed. "If it makes you feel any better, Phaedra says they're alive, but pretty well mind-blasted."

"It's like _betraying_," Maurice went on, showing no signs of having heard, "but a thousand times worse. I _betrayed_ her, turned on her, stabbed her in the back. I'm...sorry, Ariadne. You were talking like _Mom_ there, for a minute, the way she used to be. But I couldn't let you have to remember the things _she_ remembers..."

"What's he going on about?" asked Max. A reflective sign reading _Emilianów 10k_ flashed by, dwarfed by an enormous billboard showing a woman in factory coveralls, holding a wrench and defiantly announcing _Unity Is Our Strength!_

Phaedra began riffling through the scattered wallets, extracting bills and Federation coins. "No idea. You think we can get all the way to Pilgrim Island in this thing?"

"I'm not going to try. The Federation tracked the last military vehicle we stole, so—"

A high, squawky voice burst from the instrument panel, startling him. "_M45, do you copy? We're getting signal breakup here, do you copy?_"

"_Yokai, Twelve Leader, we copy. Confirm change of orders?_"

"_Copy that, M45. General Mobilization is now—" _a blast of static interrupted _"—by Full Alert Status, repeat, Full Alert Status. Your unit is to rendezvous at point seven-seven-oh-niner on the Katowissa border. Do not—_" more static "_—repeat, do_ not _cross the border—without regimental orders. Acknowledge._"

"_Acknowledge, Twelve Leader. Katowissa border; do not cross without orders. Over and out._"

Max turned the volume of the communications unit down to a whisper. "Did you hear that? They're on Full Alert now. As if they're ready to go to _war_ with the InterDominion. What the hell's it all about?"

"You do not understand." The voice was Ariadne's, low and indistinct.

Phaedra turned once more, straining to hear. "Say that again? What'd you say?"

"I am not you," she murmured on. "_They_ are not you. You do not understand. You must not touch them. There is another way."

"Maurice—what's she talking about?"

He shook his head and smiled, plainly overjoyed to hear Ariadne speaking anything at all, even nonsense. "Don't know. I can feel her mind, but it's all weird, nothing makes any sense. She's starting to wake up, but she isn't there yet." He lifted her head to his lap and sat there with one arm about her waist, holding her against the road shocks and bounces.

Watching in the mirror, Max cursed silently. Whatever had happened back in the clearing seemed to have left them both in an incoherent state. Traveling with them had just become exponentially more dangerous. "Phaedra, how much was in those wallets?"

"Oh, about three hundred and fifty FVUs. And a ton of loose change. Why?"

"Because we're going to have to stop for a while, to wait for Maurice and Ariadne's heads to clear. And I'm not going to park in the woods and wait to be tracked down again. I don't know what it is that they think they need to do, but we all have to get some sleep, decent food and a change of clothes before we can help them any more."

"Oh." She watched a handful of small houses flicker by in the night. "I guess that's true. I'm pretty much dead on my feet, and I can just imagine how beat _you_ are."

"Yeah, getting there, I guess."

From his peripheral sight, Max saw her turn her face toward him, looking him over as though only now discovering his presence. "Look, Max... I'm kinda starting to get a little worried about all this. I mean, you and me, we don't even know what those two think they have to _do_, exactly. It might get us all killed. In fact it almost _has_. And we're not even at Pilgrim Island yet."

"I know. It occurred to me, too."

"Well, I guess what I'm really askin' is... If Maurice'n Ariadne flake out...how're you gonna keep this trip goin'...all by yourself?"

"I won't be all by myself." Unsuccessfully, he strained to hold his concentration to the road ahead. "I've got _you,_ remember?"

"Oh."

Phaedra fell silent then, for a long while. But later, as the _Emilianów 3k_ marker swelled and vanished in the patrol car's headlights, she spoke, very softly. "I'm glad the Federation Aero Corps didn't get you, Max."

Afterward, she pretended to be asleep. And Max pretended to believe it.

—

—

—

**Chapter Twenty-Three**

—

—

Normally a stickler for military formality, Dominic had first removed his duty cap. Then, after the first eight hours in the cramped command center in Morita's office suite, the heat and general stuffiness forced him to undo the collar of his jacket. Then the jacket itself disappeared, followed by his tie. Finally, with shirt collar open and both sleeves rolled to his elbows, Dominic crossed the room toward Dr. Egan, who sat in silence, staring at one of the many video monitors.

"Communications are continuing to deteriorate, Doctor," he said when Egan did not look up.

"Yes, Commander Sorel, all over the earth. The ionization of the upper atmosphere has grown violently erratic over the past few hours. And in the meantime, the Federation military seem to expect an invasion by the IPF at any moment. The possibility now exists that they might try a pre-emptive invasion of the former Federation provinces who have joined with the InterDominion." At last, he swiveled his chair in Dominic's direction and faced him. "A perilously volatile situation. Tell me, what information have your interrogators derived from those two Federation pilots whose airship Ariadne and Maurice appropriated for their journey?"

Dominic squirmed uncomfortably; the information was hours old, and should have been delivered at once. "Their stories are consistent, Sir. The ship's components were transported beneath the InterDominion's trapar barrier in an underwater submarine craft. Then it was assembled somewhere on the southern coast of our main continent. I've already advised Renton and Eureka to close that loophole in the barrier. The aircrew waited there for a rendezvous signal from the undercover operatives who infiltrated Magda Wesselény's assassination team. I'm sorry, Doctor, for the delay—"

"Tell me, Commander, have you ever given thought to the armatures?"

"W-what?" Dominic stammered to a halt, taken off guard by the sudden change of topic.

"Armatures. The organic cores of the LFOs. They are found buried deep in caverns within the Coral bluffs. They are silicon-based, roughly humanoid but—though they possess a unique musculature and nervous system—have no real brain. Sadly, when they were first discovered, our own species' first inclination was to turn them into weapons of war. Have you never wondered why such extremely peculiar organisms exist at all?"

Job Stevens, seated two desks to Egan's right, stretched back from his own screens, rubbed at eyes gone red and hollow, and spared Dominic the need to answer. "I have. Or at least, Woz did, back when we were still all on the _Moonlight_. He used to tell me his ideas, and I thought they made sense. He believed the armatures were attempts the Coral made to understand humans. Unsuccessful, of course."

"Perhaps." Egan pulled a pair of spring-loaded grip-strengthening exercisers from a drawer beneath his table and began to work them at an amazing speed, as though they offered no more resistance than so many castanets. "Professor Wossel's thoughts were along similar lines to my own, yet he did not take them to their logical conclusion. It is my hypothesis that the armatures were _prototypes_."

Feeling obligated to contribute _something, _Dominic said, "For what, sir?"

"For _Eureka_, of course—and for Sakuya before her. I now believe that the Coral was _practicing _in its own way, fabricating artificial life-forms as experiments, in order to gain the expertise to pursue its ultimate creation. Namely, Eureka. And later—" he eyed Dominic shrewdly "—to create a Coralian girl from existing human tissue. I speak, of course, of your own wife."

Jobs nodded agreement. "I think I follow you. And once the human-coralian girls produced children themselves, they were..."

"Yes, Mr. Stevens—the offspring were _also_ female human-coralian hybrids. I believe that already a pattern is emerging. My theory is... But you must please excuse me, Commander, for speaking of Mrs. Sorel as though she were a laboratory specimen. The pressure of the current crisis has made me unforgivably rude."

_You, show signs of pressure? Not bloody likely._ "It's all right, Doctor, Anemone and I've talked about it, too. But...what does it all have to do with the LFO armatures suddenly shutting down?"

"Ah, but _are_ they 'shutting down?' Once, they were experimental vessels designed to facilitate communication. Perhaps they are now..."

One of Dominic's assistants hurried to his side, bearing a sheet of paper. Dominic thanked him and read from it, his heart sinking with each word. "More bad news," he said. "Our last fragment of information out of the Federation was that the airship LZ-129—the one that Max Condor and Phaedra flew to the Federation—has been discovered on the coast of one of the western lakes. Earlier reports also indicate that the ship Ariadne and Maurice hijacked crashed into an open field some forty kilometers south of a Federation strip mine. Nothing about...survivors."

Jobs gave him a reassuring smile that somehow took on a sinister, cadaverous look in the upward glow from the monitors. "All the same, we know that Phaedra, Ariadne and Maurice are all right. Eureka and Renton—and Anemone, too, of course—would have sensed it right away if anything had...happened to them."

"Right. But there've also been Federation police reports of UFO activity in a little town called LaMarche, not far from the lake where the LZ-129 was found. Green flames seen in the sky; fire and explosions near a railway line. The Federation's trying to pass it off as a Vodarek terrorist attack on the railway, but it sounds to me more like...trapar." Dominic looked up from the paper. "Those captured pilots told us their ship was brought down by a powerful trapar plasma. My guess is that Ariadne has started learning how to control trapar, just like Eureka."

The click-clack of Egan's exercise devices slowed to silence as he pondered the new information. "Reasonable. Which would also imply that the Federation High Council may now suspect the presence of a human-coralian female within their borders. Combined with their belief that the InterDominion has established lunar bases with which to bombard them, their paranoia will rise to new heights. We must inform Viyuuden's team of these new developments at once."

"We can't," said Jobs. "The ionization levels are getting so wild that even shielded-cable communication lines between here and the Federation are being affected. There's been no getting through to them even on phased-wave transmission. Things could hardly get any worse."

Dominic held the note paper in the air before them, like a parchment bearing an ancient curse. "Yes, they can. Senator Fuillión has announced a new press conference in an hour."

"Ah." Egan's eyes twinkled dangerously. "If nothing else, it should prove entertaining. Though I fear that Holland will be quite irritated at being awakened." He swiveled back to his monitor and began typing at a furious speed. "For the moment, though, we have more urgent matters with which to deal. How long before Mr. Emerson's expected return?"

—

—

—

**Chapter Twenty-Four**

—

—

Phaedra crouched in the darkness beside Max, handing him tools from the patrol vehicle's maintenance kit as he worked at removing the license medallion from the automobile.

"Nobody looking?" he whispered as he spun the lower two nuts free.

She lifted her head a fraction to look around the unpaved parking lot. Street lights were few and dim here behind the silent factory, but still she felt horribly conspicuous. "What're all these cars doing here anyway? That factory's shut down, right?"

"Yeah." Max groped around for a spanner and started unscrewing the top bolts. "Probably shut down for good, from the look of it. So people from the town park in places like this to keep from having to pay the parking tax. The government functionaries, that is—they're the only ones who have cars at all... There, that's got it. Now we go to work on that one over there, to get the plate off of it."

"Huh? What d'you need _two_ plates for?"

"To switch them. After we steal _this_ car, the owner'll probably report it stolen. Only, he'll give the Secpos his own license number. Which'll be the _wrong_ license number, since we're switching these plates with somebody else's car, see?" He stifled a huge yawn. "The Secpos won't get it straightened out for days—probably weeks, with this war fever in the air. Okay, got this one loose. Let's move on to that black one over there."

"That's really clever," she said as they squatted behind the sedan's rear bumper and she handed him a smaller-gauge spanner. "Where'd you _learn_ stuff like that?"

He grunted without looking up. "I was born into a rough neighborhood, not far from the Magdalen rolling mills. Most guys were on the government dole most of the time, and unemployment makes people do just about anything for an extra couple of untaxable FVUs. That's why I became a bush pilot—I didn't want to end up crawling through a life like that. There, that one came off easy. You go get Maurice and Ariadne while I switch the medallions and fiddle the lock open."

"Sure. I won't even ask if you know how to get this thing started without a key." Darting from shadow to shadow as though spies lurked behind the huddled humps of each vehicle, she bent low and made her way to the parked and silent military AT car. Maurice looked up as she opened the door, but Ariadne, her head still on his lap, made no movement.

"You guys have gotta come with me," she told him in her softest voice.

"Yeah. Sure, okay." Maurice shook his head irritably. "I'm all screwed up, Phaedra. I can't _think_ straight."

"You never could. What about _her?_ Can she walk?"

With a gentle firmness that brought a sharp pang of envy to Phaedra's heart, he lifted Ariadne upright in the seat. Maurice had draped his own jacket over her shoulders, but beneath it she still wore nothing above the waist.

Ariadne blinked and shivered. "It's cold. I am _not_ you. There is another way. Where...where are we?"

"Running from the Feds," said Phaedra, "as usual. Maurice, help her out, then get that blanket around yourself. They don't take too well to guys with wings around here."

"Sure." He stumbled out the door, pulling Ariadne behind him as Phaedra guided them both.

For an instant, she froze, heart hammering, as a dark sedan with no headlights rolled to a stop beside them. But she saw at once that it was Max at the wheel and sighed. "Okay, here's our ride. Here, you two get in the back seat. The seats're softer than in that patrol car, and it'll warm up before long."

Phaedra closed the door behind them, then hurried back to the front seat. Foolish as she knew it to be, she luxuriated in the sensation of cozy security. She settled into the threadbare seat cushions and let the delicious warmth of the heater—smelling only faintly of methane—wash over her.

Max tugged at the stiff shift lever and turned on the headlights. They rolled out into a deserted side street, then joined with the main road once again and left the town of Emilianów behind.

"The Well-Earned Rest," he said after a few kilometers.

"Huh?"

"There was a sign a couple of kilos back: 'The Well-Earned Rest Tourist Cabins ahead.' You'd probably nodded off while we passed it."

Instinctively, Phaedra bristled. "_Hey_, I wasn't—"

"Easy, take it easy." Only the outline of his face showed in the faint radiance of the dashboard. "Truth is, I almost went asleep at the wheel a couple of times myself. None of us are going to be any good much longer without some shuteye."

"Oh. Sorry, Max, I'm just used to... Never mind. But...won't anybody see us when we check in?"

He planted the Federation military officer's cap back on his head and patted it into place. "Like I told you: they only see Authority. When we—"

"Whole world...depends on us."

Phaedra looked to the back seat. "Maurice? That you? Wha'd you say?"

"I...killed a guy, in the airship, back before we left the InterDominion. Had to protect her. Shot him and he fell...all ground up in the machine. He said the whole world depended on me and Ariadne. Mostly Ariadne."

"'_Killed?_' Holy crap, what were you two _doing_ before we caught up to you? What's that stuff about 'the whole world depending' mean?"

But he slumped against the silent Ariadne, already deeply asleep.

Sharp windblown sleet ticked and clattered at the windshield, and Max fumbled for the valve of the primitive vacuum-operated wipers. "Could you make anything out of that?" he asked.

"Not much. Maurice thinks the whole world is depending on them. It sounded like he was still crazy." They pulled back out onto the nearly empty SR 36RF roadway and accelerated as rapidly as the feeble sedan would allow. "But I kinda have a real bad feeling that he's not."

#

Max tugged the Federation military cap into precise alignment and buttoned his greatcoat to the neck, to conceal his civilian clothing beneath. Though the sleet was slackening a bit by now, a strong northerly wind whipped it into stinging buckshot. He almost envied the warm, comfortable night clerk seated behind a reception desk in the tourist camp's office. _Get it over with, before you fall asleep on your feet._

He entered, deliberately leaving the door open behind him. _That's the kind of rudeness a Federation officer'd show to a lowly civilian_. "You have cabins for rental?" he demanded.

"Eh?" The clerk looked up from his tabloid newspaper, clearly astonished to find anyone traveling in such weather, let alone a military officer. "That is...yes, _sir_. How may I serve you, sir?"

"I require two cabins for the night. May I presume they are...clean?"

"Oh, yes, sir, very clean. Our standards are the very highest. I must say, sir, I'm very surprised to see an officer of the Forces wanting accommodations at a civilian facility, especially at a time of crisis like this." He waved his hand toward the newspaper before him, crammed with hysterical headlines about InterDominion treachery and events on the Moon.

"It has been a demanding day; defending the Federation requires all that a man can give. Your rates?"

"Ten FVUs the night, sir, for each cabin." He reached for a numbered rack of keys beneath a _Unity Is Our Power_ poster tacked to one wall. "Still, I must say it's most unsual—in my own poor experience, at least—to find our stalwart military personnel taking lodging in ordinary accommodations like ours."

_Damn the man! Why can't he just accept anything an officer says without question, like everyone else?_ "Special circumstances require special tactics."

"All the same, I—"

"Hurry _up_, will you, sweetie?"

Max froze; the fluting voice had been Phaedra's, coming from outside. He spun around, to find Phaedra herself, leaning out the driver's side window, wearing a pair of military sunglasses and displaying more-than-generous amounts of bosom from the jumpsuit unzippered down to her navel.

"I..." He cleared his throat, understanding at once, doing his best to seem annoyed and embarrassed rather than frightened.

"Hey, don't just _stand_ there, Basil! I'm gettin' _cold_ out here! And so're Melanie and the General!"

The clerk's eyes bulged like marbles in a face already beginning to perspire. "The...General, sir?"

Max hit his stride once more. "In the back seat, with his...companion. He does not wish to present himself...personally. You understand, of course."

"Uh...yes, sir, of course." With difficulty, he tore his gaze from the brilliantly blonde teenage beauty in the car and pushed a pair of keys across the desk with shaking hands. "Our discretion is legendary. You and the... And your friends have nothing to fear. Cabins 34 and 36 should suit you admirably, sir."

"Excellent. Naturally, you have seen _nothing_ and _no one _this evening, is that clear?"

"Lips are sealed, sir. We have often accommodated other...customers with similar needs, sir."

Max gave him a curt nod. "I'll depend on it. Here's twenty FVU for the cabins, and ten more for your trouble." Without looking back, he marched back to the car and rolled up the window, then drove away from the light of the neon sign with all the speed he could manage.

"You saved the day back there," he said to Phaedra, wiping at his forehead with one sleeve. "That damn night clerk kept asking too many nosey questions. If you hadn't dazzled him, things could've got pretty sticky."

"Thanks. Runs in the family, I guess." She tugged up the zipper of her jumpsuit and took the sunglasses from her Coralian eyes. "Doesn't look like anybody else's staying in these places tonight."

"With this weather and the Federation on the edge of war, that's no surprise." He pulled the car to the door of cabin 36, leaving the engine running. "Help me get these two inside, will you?"

Ariadne and Maurice, though still groggy and only occasionally coherent, proved able to walk when guided. Max and Phaedra led them to the bed, then extinguished the light and locked the cabin door behind them.

Max moved their stolen sedan across the footpath to cabin 34, checked their room for whatever new horror might be waiting within, then waved Phaedra inside. "Okay, it's safe. For now, at least. Come on." He slammed the door, reveling in the brief fantasy of sanctuary. "I wish I could lock the car, but when you steal automobiles, the keys aren't usually included."

"Uh-huh." Phaedra snapped shut the door's tumbler lock, then slid home the two drawbolts beneath it. "Y'know, I think I'm starting to understand something about them. Ariadne and Maurice, I mean."

"Is that right?" He removed the military cap and sailed it across the room toward a chair, missing by at least a full meter. "What'd that be?" The bed beckoned, almost hypnotically irresistible.

"Well, they were married two years ago, see. By Viyuuden, the High Priest, y'know. He said it was what the Will of Vodarek required. He oughta know, I guess, but y'know, they... You listening to me, Max?"

"Mmmm." He fell forward on the bed face-first, unable to hold his eyes open any longer.

"Well, they've had it pretty easy since then. We all have, I guess, back in the Heart of the World. But for _them_, maybe it was _too_ easy. I think when you're..." 

Max heard no more.

—

—

—

**Chapter Twenty-Five**

—

—

Kaz stared with bleary eyes at the schedule board hanging on the wall of Chuvashia's railway station. The artificial sideburns glued to his cheeks itched, but he was certain he could forget them during a nice, long peaceful train ride. In his mind, he could already picture the seats: soft, inviting, foam-padded, reclining for sleep. Not far away, Tommy stood speaking softly with the station agent in his glass-fronted ticket booth, buying tickets for them all.

"I still think this is a crazy way to run a secret mission," said Yuki, whose long braids draped down the front of a plaid woolen jacket. "Anyway, I'm cold. I've been cold all night long."

"Uh-huh." Kaz could not disagree. The long night of bus rides and double-time hiking had drained him more than he cared to admit. "Has Viyuuden said anything to you yet about what we're gonna _do_ once we get to Pilgrim Island?"

"Not a word. Personally, I don't think he knows yet. He expects the Will of Vodarek to tell him what to do. I prefer a nice, solid battle plan, myself."

Beside Kaz, Lark looked out across the four railroad tracks, to the station platform on the opposite side. "Why are there two stations instead of just one?"

"Because the passenger trains run in both directions," he explained. "This one is the Westbound track, but on the other side, trains run Eastbound. So there are passenger platforms on both of the outer tracks. And the two tracks in the middle are for freight trains, going west and east." He let off while an armed station guard, in State Railway Police uniform ambled past on routine patrol. "Don't you remember _anything_ from before the Federation brainwashed you?"

"Very little. And I'm not even certain about the things I _think_ I remember. It could all be fantasies, for all I know. That's what the healers at the Temple told me."

"Oh." Kaz was still nerving himself to tell her how very appealing she looked in her ski outfit, with her hair wound about her head, when Tommy returned. She handed out tickets to each of them.

"Here. We're in luck—there's an Eastbound train at seven-thirty."

"That's on the opposite platform," said Lark.

"Right. But there's a passageway under the tracks up there, where passengers can cross from one side to the other." She looked up and down the platform, where fifteen or twenty sleepy-eyed travelers were lining up near the edge. "It's almost seven twenty-five now, so we'd better get started..."

Viyuuden—who now sported a dark wig combed into an elaborate pompadour—emerged from the passenger waiting room, looking even more stern than usual. "Wait," he said, and the sharp note of caution in his voice told Kaz at once that something was going wrong. "There is a problem. We have blundered into a trap. Do not all look round at once or show signs of alarm. There are Federation operatives in the crowd."

"You sure of that?" asked Yuki.

"Yes. Notice the woman in the brown coat? See how often she slips her hand beneath it? She is readying a concealed weapon. And the man in the fur hat? Like the one carrying the attaché case, he keeps glancing all round, looking not at the tracks but at _us_. Surely there are more. It has all the earmarks of an undercover operation."

Yuki shifted her eyes to the parking space to one side of the station. "Crap, I think you're right. And by amazing coincidence, a Secpo patrol car just pulled in. It's a classical undercover dragnet, all right—I should've seen it myself. I _knew_ things were going too well, dammit."

"How the hell could they've known we we'd be_ here?_" said Tommy. "I don't..."

A singing from the overhead wires and a blast of air chimes announced the arrival of the blocky State Railway locomotive and its brown chain of passenger cars. As the train squealed to a slow stop, all of them looked toward Viyuuden, tense, waiting.

He pointed westward, toward the sharp curve of the westbound line, where a second train slowly rounded the bend, horn bleating. "That is _our_ train approaching, over there. Yet the underground passage is already guarded, and we could not now reach it without running, which would surely bring immediate action against us."

"I don't see any guards or spies over on the other platform," said Yuki. "We could run across the middle tracks and..."

Kaz remembered something from the schedule posted on the wall. He turned and scanned rapidly down the column of arrival times. "No, wait! Look, there's an eastbound express freight due through here at seven-thirty two. And one westbound just a minute later. We could get killed."

"Really? Let me see." With a single long stride, Viyuuden came to his side, studying the schedule board. He looked to his wrist chronometer and seemed to come to some immediate resolve. "We have a chance, then, but a slender one. Listen carefully! On my signal, we will divide into two groups: Kazuya and Lark in one, Mrs. Novak, Mrs. Stevens and myself will be the second. Group One will enter the doorway at the rear of this car; Group Two will do the same at the forward door. But instead of seating ourselves, we will at once pass directly across the car and exit by the opposite door."

"But that'll take us out onto the tracks," said Tommy, the urgency of the moment quivering in her voice.

"Precisely. Jump down and wait there _next to_ the inner freight track for my second signal. It is _imperative_ that you _do not move_ until I give the sign—but when you _do_ move, it must be no further than _between_ the two central tracks, at once, with _no_ hesitation. Is this clear? Excellent. Then, having moved, you must stand _precisely where you are _once more, until my sign to advance again. Do you understand?"

Yuki looked up and down the station platform. A silent signal seemed to have been given; the armed guard, no longer wearing his bored face, was moving briskly in their direction, and the bystanders Viyuuden had picked out of the crowd now approached openly, all pretense abandoned. "No. I don't understand a damn thing. But like Holland always says, any idea is better than none."

Kazuya's insides froze. With a hiss of compressed air, the platform-side doors swung inward and he took Lark's arm, pulling her toward the rearmost opening, shoving past the passengers queued up to enter the train, ignoring their outraged curses, stumbling over feet and umbrellas and briefcases. Once inside, he pushed Lark ahead of him and passed by the entrance to the passenger compartment, going directly across to the opposite door. _The door. The goddam door. How do you open it?_

At last he spied a short aluminum lever just to one side. _The paint around it's all worn away. That lever gets used a lot. It's _got_ to be the control to open and close the door._

"By the authority of the Federation of Predigio Towers..." came a shout from the platform behind him. But Kaz ignored it and yanked up on the silver lever. Air hissed and the door flapped inward, opening with a rush of morning cold. With Lark beside him, he jumped.

Almost a meter and a half separated the platform-level step from the stony roadbed beneath; both of them staggered with the impact and Lark nearly went down. Kaz pulled her upright, his nostrils suddenly filled with the scents of grease, hot brake shoes, creosote and ozone. Up the line, next to the bright and shining rails, Yuki, Tommy and Viyuuden tumbled out, then stood, unmoving. The eastbound train waited across the tracks, so tempting...

The overhead wires whined again, the hard, shrill song of pantograph against cable. Two shots crackled from the passenger car behind; two tiny explosions puffed on the ballast to either side of them, but still Kazuya and Lark held their place. Someone jumped to the ground beside them, then another. Kaz did not so much as move his eyes from Viyuuden. Then an air whistle's shrill shriek slashed through the morning, and he saw, looming out of nowhere from the westbound curve, the dark snout of the express freight, headlights flashing like the accusing eyes of demons. "You will come with us," someone said. Fingers groped for his elbow.

"_Now!_" shouted Viyuuden, and Kaz held Lark's hand with a crushing grip as they sprinted across the track in two jumps, only meters ahead of the massive locomotive...

"_Come back here!_" A hand snatched at the empty air where Kaz's elbow had been...

The sound rose to a crash and wail that went on and on and on as the freight roared past just behind them. Wind grabbed at their bodies and Kaz pulled Lark to himself, holding her back, away from the jagged handles and axles and bearing journals that reached and snatched, only centimeters behind. Submerged in the thundering roar came screams from human throats, more than one, quickly carried away. Up the line, beyond where the other group stood crouching, something that might have been a leg flew from beneath the train, tumbling like a roller skate down a stairwell, wet and crimson in the bright new sun.

Viyuuden stood as the freight passed. Unable to make himself heard over the passing train, he waved his arm toward the other side. Too numb for questions, Kaz led Lark across the next set of rails as fast as he dared. She tripped across a loose rail bolt and he stooped to lift her, just as the wail of the westbound express freight screeched in his ears from the opposite direction.

They scrambled together away from the track and he held tightly to a grab handle of the waiting passenger train, locking Lark to him with the other. Behind them, the passing eastbound freight revealed almost a dozen men and women, some in uniform, others in plainclothes, all holding weapons as they ran heedlessly across the first empty track and up to the second, wearing faces of single-minded hatred. One of them raised an RPP. "_Stop_, damn you—"

But faster than a scream, the westbound express freight bore down upon them, bursting and shredding their bodies across the locomotive's pilot truck and motor assembly as the train's unstoppable mass thundered through. This time, the hurricane of its passage was worse, far worse, pulling at Kaz and Lark, sucking at them, dragging them toward the same bloody death as the Federation killers. But he held to the grab handle until his fingers burned with pain. _You can't have her,_ he shouted in his mind.

The freight passed; a mist of blood glistened on ballast and rails. Already half a kilometer past, the express freight's air brakes took full hold with an ear-slicing chorus of metallic squeals as the engine driver hit the emergency release. _But it takes at least six or seven kilometers to get a fast express freight stopped._

Dimly, Kaz registered Viyuuden's waving hand gesturing him forward. He nodded and squatted down, leading Lark ahead, beneath the waiting cars of the eastbound train, still motionless as it took on passengers. Together they ran beneath the jutting edge of the platform till they came to its end, then straightened in the sunlight, looking to each other.

"We've gotta act n-normally," he told Lark, knowing how impossible that would be. He brushed back his hair and wiped a speck of blood from her ski jacket with hands that shook uncontrollably.

"What's going on across the tracks?" asked a woman in a frumpy business suit. "What's all the commotion?"

Lark shook her head, combing her hair back into alignment in a casual way. "Some kind of accident, I think. There was a lot of shouting. It must have been horrible."

"Really! And the State Railways are always so scrupulous and safe, too. With war so close, it seems that _everything's_ falling apart. Well, we'd best get on; the schedule waits for nothing, no matter how awful."

"Right." Half-expecting the woman to pull an RPP from her coat pocket and start firing, Kaz straightened his shoulders and followed Lark into the passenger car's blessed silence. The doors shut behind them and he knew a moment of panic as he realized he hadn't seen the others board. But he quickly spotted them in an isolated corner near the rearmost vestibule of the car, and the two of them made their way back as the train gave a jerk and accelerated away from the Chuvashia station.

He urged Lark into a window seat, then collapsed beside her and turned at once to Viyuuden, whose wig had somehow remained in place in spite of the rigors of the wind. "W-won't anybody stop this train?" he whispered, forcing the words out one after the other. "Won't they catch us?"

"I think not. The station staff will know only that some passengers were killed while attempting to cross the tracks, which is strictly forbidden. All of our pursuers, I think, are dead. They will not report back to their superiors at Federation Intelligence, which will eventually be noticed, of course. But by the time their remains are identified, we shall be far, far from here." He dipped his head in a token of respect. "We are all indebted to you for having noticed the times of the express freight schedules. Had you not been so attentive, _we_ would be the dead ones, and the many who are depending upon our mission might well follow us."

"Well, sure, I guess so. But still..."

Tommy lifted her face, still white as cornstarch. "I know just how you feel, kiddo. This is how it was in the army. It all comes down to _them_ or _you_. We used to say that as long as it's still capable of making you sick, you haven't lost your humanity."

In his mind, Kaz could still see the face of the railway guard, bored and cold, all unsuspecting that his terrible death lay only minutes away. "I guess I haven't lost mine, then. 'Cause I sure as hell _am_ sick."

But Yuki's eyes were hard, and her face flashed in the sun flickering through the passing trees along the right-of-way. "What _I _want to know is how those bastards knew we'd be there. Who could've tipped them off? Who sold us out?"

None of it mattered to Kazuya, not now. Nausea and terror still crawled through his mind as he scrunched himself deeper into his seat. Somehow the comfort he'd anticipated so eagerly just half an hour before brought him no peace whatever. But he forced his breathing into a regular cadence and, lulled by the rhythmic vibrations of the train, meditated himself at last into a troubled sleep.

Later that morning, sometime just before the noon hour, he jerked fully awake and looked around him, all at once realizing what he hadn't comprehended in the aftermath of the mangled morning.

Yuki had been staring directly at Lark.

—

—

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**Chapter Twenty-Six**

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—

Kitsune watched the morning sunlight from the eastern hall window near the apex of the great pyramidal Vodarek Temple. Since relieving Akio, Miss Maeter's guard on the night shift, Kitsune had spent an hour in meditation on a woven hemp mat outside her door. But somehow his usual immersion in the Will of Vodarek had failed to bring him clarity. That, Viyuuden would have said, was a sure sign that he needed to look deeper inside the recesses of his own spirit, rather than seeking external answers from the Will.

The Heart of the World was still a small city, as cities go, and in all his nineteen years Kitsune had never hoped it would stay that way as strongly as he did now. The isolation of Thuu Bak, former spiritual center of the Vodarek world, had given him a taste for the peace of a rural environment. Rings of houses circled the city proper, with the various factories and educational complexes spread further out. The unseen Parliament stood to the south, with the Temple itself at the center of it all. _Like me, the city is peaceful on the outside, but fearful within. Who could ever guess, looking at it from such a height, that the old grudges created during the long Coralian War could once more surface and threaten it all? We must trust to the Will, Blessed Norbu wrote, but not rely on it to order the world. For that, we may only rely upon ourselves. But how, then, do we judge the truth of our own—?_

A lock ratcheted open behind him, and Kitsune whirled into a low fighting stance. Maeter stood there in her doorway, wearing a short nightdress and fluffy pink slippers, her blonde hair a shining tangled mass. She looked very vexed indeed.

"Kitsune? I'm glad you're here. Come inside, please. _Hurry_."

"But Miss Maeter, I'm tasked with guarding you..."

"Well, you can do that just as well in here as out there. Now get out of that silly crouch—I'm not going to attack you. Come on in, it's about to start."

He looked up and down the stone hallway, seeing no immediate menace. "All right. Exactly _what_ is about to start?"

"It'll be on the video in just a minute." Maeter kicked the door shut behind him and brought the video screen on her coffee table to life. "That idiot Fuillión is about to announce that the _Princess_—" she screwed up her nose to demonstrate her distaste for the term "—is missing."

"How do you know what the Senator is going to announce before he announces it?" The screen quivered for a moment before resolving to a Ministry of Information reporter holding a microphone and occasionally gesturing toward a small crowd on the steps of the Parliament Halls.

"Mother told me, early this morning. Our Intelligence services managed to sneak a draft copy of the speech. Sit down, will you?"

"On the bed? Oh, very well. But as for the announcement...the fact is that both she and your foster brother _are_ missing. Preceptor Viyuuden announced it to the Guardians of the flame, on oath of secrecy."

She dropped to the bed beside him, bouncing him thoroughly. "Did he announce that they've gone into the Federation?"

"The Federation?" Kitsune wondered if this might be one of the whimsical pranks with which she had been known to amuse herself in years past. "How could they possibly be—?"

"They were kidnapped by Federation spies. But Maurice got them free somehow, and took over the plane. They're both in the Federation now." Maeter traced the patterns of the bedspread with one finger.

"If this is some new trick of yours, it's in very poor taste, Miss."

Her blue eyes grew several degrees cooler. "It's _not_ a _trick_. They're in the Federation right now, even though nobody's made the news public, so you've gotta keep it secret. Seems like they might be heading for Pilgrim Island, but nobody really knows. And _stop_ it with that 'Miss Maeter' stuff, will you? My name's _Maeter_."

Kitsune could only stare at the video screen as the reporter droned silently on, interrupted by occasional bursts of electronic confetti. "In the Federation. Then, _that_ must be where Preceptor Viyuuden has gone. Into the Federation, after them."

"Good, you caught on right away. But Fuillión's goin' to hint around that Maurice and...that girl, you know, Ariadne, are in there up to something. Sabotage or something to do with the Moon, or attacking the Federation or something." On the screen, the Senator and his entourage were descending the stairs, now.

"But that's outrageous! How could anyone possibly believe...? But there's already a threat of war, isn't there? And Senator Fuillión _has_ been stirring up trouble, raising doubts and even hinting at open treason." Kitsune mulled this new information. "But what has he got to _gain_ by it all? All these senseless charges—what can they possibly do for him?"

"Dunno." She turned her face toward him, without hostility this time. "What's your name? I know your Vodarek name is Kitsune, but what's your _real_ name? Why do you guys take those symbolic names in the first place?"

"It's an ancient custom, from the early days of the founding of the Vodarek Light. We were a monastic order, then, and the Temple name symbolized the renunciation of the physical world." He tried to laugh, but did no better than a crooked smile. "We're not monastic any more; our sect hasn't been for a couple of centuries. It was the Blessed Norbu who completed the break with the monastic tradition. Then, when I left the Temple Acolytes to join the Guardians, I—"

"Shhh—here it is." Maeter hit the video control, and Fuillión's strident voice cut Kitsune off. "...citizens of the InterDominion, once again I am putting my own safety aside to bring you the truth behind the unfolding international situation." He waved a rumpled fistful of papers over his head. "My sources have recently unearthed a shocking fact. Namely that Lady Ariadne, the InterDominion's unofficial 'princess,' has gone missing." A rumble of shocked surprise shook the knot of reporters, fellow senators and other bystanders. The Senator raised his free hand for silence and struck an indignant pose. "Where, at this time of great crisis, has the daughter of our revered leaders gone? Personally seeking a negotiated peace with the Federation, perhaps? Perhaps on terms unfavorable to the InterDominion? _If_ this is so, then by what authority does the Royal Family circumvent the lawful resonsibility of the Senate—which, even now, is acting upon my earlier demands to seek peace with our former enemies?"

"They're _still_ our enemies," muttered Kitsune.

"Naturally, idle speculation might lead to rumors of some more sinister motive behind this visit. I therefore call upon the Royal Family itself to clear the air and address this question! Where _is_ Lady Ariadne, and what is she doing? I address these questions not to the leadership of the Senate, but to the people of the InterDominion themselves! Dire circumstances call for decisive—even unconventional—action. I now therefore, at the possible risk of my own life, _demand_ that we be told the truth. The InterDominion's fate is now at its most uncertain since its founding. Will we not be granted the complete _truth_ at last?" Bringing down his fist in the air, he spun about and marched away back up the stairs with his staff, pursued by eager reporters.

"And there you have it," said the announcer as the camera switched back to her. "Another startling announcement from Senator Fuillión. This time, he wants a direct statement from the Royal Family itself, to clarify—"

Kitsune snatched the video controller from Maeter's hand and killed the volume. "That lying crock of...slime. Who does he think he is, _demanding_... Oh. I'm sorry, Miss... I'm sorry, Maeter. Here, I just let my emotions run away with me. I guess I was never much of an Acolyte, after all."

She took the controller back, but seemed in no way offended. "It's okay, I was pretty mad about the whole thing, too. But look, didn't you notice anything funny about what that gasbag was saying just now?"

"Only in the bleakest sense." The irrelevant thought came to him, then, that her normally chaotic room this morning was as well-organized as he'd ever seen it. "What was I supposed to notice?"

"Well, _Maurice!_ Fuillión just kept talking over and over about Ariadne this, Princess that, but he never mentioned _Maurice_ at all. So either he doesn't give a damn about Maurice, or—"

"Or_ he doesn't know they've both gone missing_. I get it, now. That's _got_ to be significant. I wonder if Commander Sorel's group has noticed it."

Maeter rose and stood before the video screen, hands on her hips. "You can bet that Doctor _Egan's_ thought about it, all right. _And_ Holland, _and_ Uncle Dominic. Probably been talking about it since they got that draft copy last night. But they don't know Mom and Dad the way I do, so there's one thing they _won't_ be thinking of yet."

He knew he was expected to ask, "What's that?"

"That Mom and Dad will want to make a public appearance, probably in a few hours, to kind of calm things down; to tell the truth in front of everybody. They're like that. They always want to...what are you looking at?"

"The, uh, video display. You're standing in front of it, and I can't see what's going on."

She walked briskly to a small night table and plucked a sheet of paper from its surface. "Anyway, I have an idea. But Mom and Dad _mustn't_ find out about it. If they do, it won't be convincing. Here. Look over this list. I want you to get me everything on it in...say three hours? Can you do it?"

"I'm supposed to be guarding you, remember?"

"Then arrange for somebody else to take your post for a little while. Now, can you _do_ it?"

"Well...I can get _these_ items easily enough. But _this_ one is going to take some doing; they usually have to be specially fitted, after all." He looked up at her with a lifted eyebrow. "Just what _is_ this idea of yours?"

In a breathless rush, accompanied by a great deal of animated hand-waving, she told him.

As she stood fidgeting in the silence that followed, Kitsune considered it all carefully. But though he'd expected something naïve and impractical to the point of irrationality, in the end it all had the ring of a well-thought-out plan of action. "Okay, I think it _is_ a good idea. I'll help you. But remember, _I'm_ the only one who's taking the big chance, here. This could get me expelled from the Guardians."

Maeter gave a little jump toward him, then seemed to think better of it and stood with hands folded. "Even if you are, I'll make sure Mom and Dad put you back."

"Unless _they're_ the ones who have me discharged." He went to the heavy door and pulled it open, then hesitated. "Listen, I've always wanted to ask you, Maeter...what was it like? Before the InterDominion and the Heart of the World, I mean. When you and your family were on the run with First Speaker Novak?"

"Oh, that. It was pretty scary, but it's a really, _really_ long story. After this's over, I promise I'll tell you the whole thing... Hey—you never did tell me your real name."

"Alan." After so long, the word came strangely to his lips, as though it were an incantation opening the gateway to a new dimension. "Alan Wyngard. See you when I get back, Maeter."

—

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**Chapter Twenty-Seven**

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—

Holland Novak stood on the broad roof of NewTresor's communications spire, facing east. The cool wind off Lake Epiphany fluttered his hair and clothing, and he felt as if he could almost sprout wings like Eureka and Renton and take off into the midday sunlight, far from the petty, dirty world of politics.

"I _thought_ I might find you up here."

He turned to find Job Stevens emerging from the access door, shading his eyes as he came nearer, his boots crunching on the pebbled roofing material.

"I wasn't _always_ so easy to find," said Holland.

"That was before all of us stopped running. Making a place for yourself is always a lot harder than keeping ahead of the pack." Jobs fumbled a pair of sunglasses from his pocket and put them on. "I was almost forgetting what the sky _looked_ like, down there in Morita's offices. Night and day were all the same. And the only thing I can think of is Tommy. I had to get away from it, even if only for a few minutes."

"Yeah, same here. Both her and Yuki have paid their dues. I still don't get why they had to go on that crazy expedition of Viyuuden's. Not that I don't trust him, but he's too much like Egan—always with the intricate layers and plans and schemes within schemes." The sky thundered for a moment as an IPF air-to-ground attack ship roared by overhead, on its way toward the main fleet at the eastern borders. "A K-7 class cruiser; based on the old _Moonlight_ design. I almost wish I was on her."

The access door slammed once again, this time revealing Dominic. He pushed windblown hair from his eyes and came to join them. "It seems we've all been drawn to the same spot."

"Great minds think alike, and all that," said Holland. "Next it'll be Egan, I suppose."

Dominic tried a smile. "Not a chance. He'll sit down there thinking, come up with some brilliant new theory, then go do a couple of hundred laps in the gym to relax. And then go back to work." He rubbed at the Coralian jewel on his forehead. "Something big is brewing. I can _feel_ it."

"You really think the Federation will risk going to war with us?" asked Jobs.

"It's not the Federation that worries me. It's...something else. Something bigger and more dangerous than the Federation. I can feel it_ all the time_, pressing from all directions at once."

Holland nodded. "All this waiting is hard on all of us."

"It's more than just nerves. As I read all our intelligence reports, I can't avoid wondering if the Federation hasn't discovered it already, and it's making them frightened and dangerous." Another cruiser passed above, and when it was gone, he said, "The kids are all bound up in it, somehow. And Eureka and Renton. And Anemone says that her and I are involved, too. But I don't know _how_, and it's driving me up the wall."

They stood without speaking for a few more minutes, until dappled shadows of clouds passed out of the northwest, leaving them shivering in alternate bands of sunlight and shade.

Jobs studied them with a trained eye. "Altocumulus. We could have a storm before long."

"We will," said Holland. "We damn well will."

Without another word, the three of them left the little world between earth and sky. But the eastern horizon waited, and gave up none of its secrets.

**The End**


End file.
